Bows and Arrows
by slytherinprincess8870
Summary: My kid sister and I ran for 163 days for a crime I commited, but I never thought that on the last day of running I would find my childhood partner-in-crime: Daryl Dixon. I knew he couldn't have died, but I didn't know I would ever see him again. DarylXOC
1. A New Family

**Summary: While hunting for the group Daryl and comes upon Daisy Jackson, a girl from Daryl's past. Please R&R it would make my day **

**Disclaimer: I do not own the The Walking Dead or The Glass Castle. This is not a crossover! I just incorporated some scenes from The Glass Castle in this story so you could understand Daryl's and Daisy's past a bit better. **

I walked through the woods, bow and arrow in hands. I was going back to check on that deer. Earlier today, when I was hunting for food, I saw this beautiful doe. And as soon as I was about to strike it down somebody got it before me. I didn't know who it was, but it was someone. Just the thought of not being the last person on this dead world was enough for me. Without confronting the shooter I hid and watched as a man in a sleeveless t-shirt take the doe and dragged it to a clearing. With Indian like footsteps I quietly watched in amazement as he left it there. I didn't take it immediately like I should've, but instead I left and went to hunt some more, thinking I would come back to that spot to see if it was still there, and then I would take it. After catching three rabbits and an ugly possum, I walked back. I didn't see the man's face though. I knew I had to go back to the highway before sundown, Annabelle was starving.

When I was getting closer to the clearing I heard a scream, at first I thought it was Annabelle, if it wasn't it was a kid none the less. Then another came up, two kids. I ran until I came to the clearing where a little boy and girl stared, horrified, at the walker eating mine and my sister's dinner. Before I could think I yelled, "What are you doing, don't just stand there! Run!" They looked at me with a confused expression and then ran. I then heard more shouts. Men and women both. How many were there? Five men came up, all armed. At first they just stared at the walker, but then they looked up at me, the walker and the doe in between us. We just stood there while the walker had its fill. Suddenly the walker stood up and was looking at the men for its next meal. Only one of them had a gun, but instead they hit it to the ground and beat it until a man with a white beard and a fisherman's hat drove a hatchet through the neck, decapitating it.

I just watched it all go down and noticed two blonde girls standing at a distance behind them. Scared as hell to notice me, by the looks of it.

The man with the white beard gestured to the walker, "This is the first one we've had up here. We've never had one come up this far up the mountain."

"They're running out of food in the city," another man said.

But the three other men just looked at me, "Who are you?" a man with a white t-shirt and stubble on his jaw asked.

Tree branches snapped in the distance and all of that 'who are you?' stuff was forgotten. We all had the same motive now? To kill walkers. I held up my metal bow and arrow and looked around wildly. The man with the crossbow came through, and now I saw his face. I couldn't believe it. It couldn't be. Daryl Dixon? One of the men looked at him and sighed, "Aw Jesus…"

I watched silently as Daryl looked past me and at the dead walker and his eaten up dear, "Son of a bitch," he said annoyingly, "That's my deer." Then he looked up at me. I haven't seen him in years.

He looked at me as confused as the kids that ran away. The man with the white beard asked, "Daryl, do you know her?"

Daryl ignored him and raised a brow in surprise, "Daisy Jackson?"

The walker wasn't quite dead and it started chewing at the air. One of the blonde girls scrunched up her nose, "Oh my god," and they both walked away, disgusted.

None of them did anything so I just sighed and shot an arrow in its head and murmured, "You didn't quite get the brain…"

The man with dark hair and big brown eyes pointed his gun at me, "Where'd you come from?"

I stepped back. I was human, so why was he pointing his gun at me? One of the other men put his hand on the gun. "Shane, put the gun down. If it makes you feel any better, I'm Rick. That's Jim," he pointed to a scraggly man with a baseball cap, "Morales," he then pointed to a Mexican looking man, "that's Glenn," he pointed to a Chinese boy that looked a bit younger than me, "And that's Dale," he said gesturing to the old man.

"She knows who I am," Daryl said. I took another step back. These people scared me and right now all I wanted to do was go back to Annabelle who was waiting for me with a shotgun and throwing knives.

"Now that you know everyone," Rick said calmly, "We want to know who you are, and where you came from."

"I'm Daisy Jackson…" I said, too in shock to tell them about Annabelle and my camp at the highway.

"Would you like to join us at our camp?" he asked, "It's not far from here. I'm new to the group too and they welcomed me in with open arms. We just want to work together and protect the people that are alive and-."

"Kill the walkers." I finished.

He smiled and nodded, "Exactly. So would you like to join us?"

"I have a little sister that's waiting for me, so…" I gestured to the direction of the highway.

"Annabelle?" Daryl asked. Everyone looked up at him, surprised.

"Yeah, Annabelle," I said. The last time I saw Daryl, Annabelle was only a babe.

"Do you want to bring Annabelle back here?" Dale asked kindly.

"Sure. I'll try to make it back before sundown. And," I took the string of dead bunnies and possums and handed them out, "You can have these if you want."

Rick took them and gave me a small smile, "We'll get a spot set up for you and your sister at camp."

"Thank you, sir. Does that trail on the highway, go up to your camp?" I asked. I could always drive the car up.

Dale nodded, "Sure does. We always hope that someone would stumble on the trail and come here."

I smiled, "I'll drive my truck up."

Dale nodded, "Okay. Do you want one of us to come with you?"

I shrugged, "If you want to…"

"For protection," Rick said, "The bigger the group the better. I'll go with you," he looked at Shane, "Take care of Carl and Lori for me." Shane nodded.

Daryl looked at me with some sort of expression in his eyes that I couldn't place. Rick and I were set off into the woods, me leading the way and him trying to walk next to me. He talked about how he woke up and found the group on his own and how they led him back to his family as I walked silently besides him. When he started talking about how happy he was with his family I couldn't stand it so to shut him up I said, "At least you found your miracle."

"I think you'll be friends with my wife Lori, and Amy and Andrea too. I think they're around your age. How old are you anyway?" he asked.

"I'm twenty-two just got out of college. I had an older sister named Lori," I said, my words covered with no emotion. Before Rick could ask a question I answered it, "Yes, she's dead."

"I'm sorry."

I smirked, "Me too."

We didn't talk for awhile after that and when we were close to the highway he asked another question, "How did you know Daryl?"

"We met when we were kids. Before my parents were on the run again."

"Running from what? I'm sorry, I'm a cop. I feel like I should know this stuff."

I smiled, "I should've known. Cops like the interrogation stuff, right? They were on the run from bill collectors."

"Oh."

"Yeah," I said.

Finally we got to the old blue Chevy truck and Annabelle hopped out with a throwing knife in her hands, "Daisy!" She threw the knife into the grass and ran over and hugged me, "I know you've only been gone for two hours, but it gets lonely and I always worry."

I combed her messy strawberry blonde curls with my fingers, "I always worry about you, Anna. Maybe you should come with me next time."

"I'm not as good a hunter as you. Where's the food?" she asked, and then she spotted Rick, "And who is he?"

"This is Rick, and I gave the food to him and his camp."

Her blue eyes lit up with glee, "His _camp_? You mean there are more people?!" She smiled.

"Yeah, there's a bunch, Anna. By the sounds of it it's a whole town!"

She giggled and clapped her hands gleefully, "Can we go, Daisy? Can we go? Please!"

"Of course. Rick is going to show us where to go. It's up the mountain."

Annabelle got in the back of the messy truck with all of our stuff in it. I got in the driver's side and Rick got in next to me. I drove up the trail and more cars were also parked there. Putting the car in park we all jumped out and Annabelle was nicely greeted by everyone in the camp. She took off right away with the other kids in the camp. Carol's daughter, Sophie and Rick's son, Carl, were so cute. They followed Annabelle and me, fascinated by the newcomers. But Carol's husband, Ed…he just crept me out.

"Hi sweetheart," Dale said in a grandfatherly tone, "This was the biggest tent left in the back of the RV. It's not that big, but it's not too small. If you need help setting it up let me know."

I smiled at him in appreciation. I never slept in a tent before. Since the apocalypse, Anna and I have been sleeping in sleeping bags in the bed of the truck, "Thank you, Dale."

Anna was already playing with Carl and Sophie so I set up my tent fairly quickly in a spot in between two others. I went back to the truck, grabbed the little belongings Anna and I had and tried setting it up nicely in the tent.

"Daisy," I jumped at the sound of my name and turned around to see Shane, "I'm sorry about pointin' the gun at you like that earlier today," he sounded sincere.

I got out of the tent and brushed my hands off, "It's okay. You can never be too cautious in a hell of a world like this."

He smiled, "That's for sure. We're cookin' dinner right now. Would you like to join us? Anna's already with the others. Those rabbits that you caught cooked mighty fine."

"Oh, thanks, but no thanks. Anna's hungrier than me. I'll join you all in a few though, okay?"

Shane nodded slowly, "There's somethin' else I wanted to tell you…" I raised a brow at him, "You knew Daryl, right?"

I nodded, "Yeah?"

"Did you know his brother?"

"Merle?" my nose crinkled up and I hoped I didn't sound disgusted, "What about him?"

Shane then explained about the situation in Atlanta and how they left Merle. He said how after Rick and I left they told Daryl what happened and they were going out to get him back the next day and before I could think I said, "I'll help."

"Oh no darlin' you don't have to do that. You just got here."

"No, I will. I knew them. The Dixon's weren't the nicest of people when I knew them and I'm sure those two haven't changed, but if we're goin' to be livin' together in camp, helpin' each other survive…live and work together or die alone, right?"

Shane smiled at me, "Right. You should tell the group that, I'm sure they'll love it." He walked back to the group fire and I followed. I sat next to Amy and Andrea. I liked Carol and Sophia. I really liked Lori too. They were nice to me. Ed put more wood in their fire which pissed Shane off. It was a stupid move. Walkers weren't blind for the most part, Shane said. Shane went over there to say something but I chose to ignore it.

Before it got into a fight I said, "Maybe if we build a higher wall around the camp fire…then we can add all the wood we like to the thing. The light will only be visible to our little circle and not so much on the outside."

Everyone looked up at me and Shane nodded, "That's a good idea, while you're all gone tomorrow we can do that."

"Wait!" Daryl said, "Your goin' now too?"

I shrugged, "Sure."

"You're a girl," he sneered. And soon enough he was the Daryl I knew from my childhood growing up on the Tracks.

I stood up, "So?"

"So you're not goin'. You're goin' to hold us back."

I took the knife I held out of my boot and before anyone could stop me I threw it and it lodged right above Daryl's head, into the tree he was leaning on. That shut him up. Shane looked between me and the knife and slowly he took the knife out of the tree and handed it back to me, "Now you either have really good aim or really bad aim, but we don't do that around here."

"I wasn't goin' to hurt him," I said, twirling the knife in my hands, "I just wanted to show him I am no liability."

I walked back to the tent and Anna followed loyally while Daryl shouted at me, "You're no better than I am, Daisy Jackson!"

_Flashback_

Just after my eighth birthday, Daryl Dixon, his older brother and father moved into the Tracks. The Tracks were just trailer homes next to the train tracks that headed towards Atlanta. It was the poor part of town, but I didn't mind. We stayed at the Tracks for over a year and mom let Lori and I enroll in the school, so I considered it a good home.

Daryl was two years older than me, tall and skinny with a brown crew cut and blue eyes. But he wasn't handsome. He kept his Marlboros rolled up in one of his T-shirt sleeves and he lit his cigarettes with a Zippo lighter stamped with a picture of a naked lady bending over.

Daryl lived in a house made of tar paper and corrugated tin, down the tracks from our house. He never mentioned his mom and made it clear that you weren't supposed to bring her up, so I never knew if she had run off or died. His dad worked in the barite mine and spent his evenings at the Owl Bar down the tracks, so Daryl had a lot of unsupervised time on his hands.

My older sister took to calling Daryl "the devil with a crew cut" and "the terror of the Tracks." She claimed he set fire to a couple of dogs and skinned some neighborhood cats and strung their naked pink bodies up on a clothesline to make jerky. Daryl said my sister was a big fat liar, but personally I didn't know who to believe. After all Daryl was a certified juvenile delinquent. He had told us that he spent time in a detention center in Atlanta for shoplifting and vandalizing cars. Shortly after he moved to the Tracks, Daryl started following me around. He was always looking at me and telling other kids he was my boyfriend.

"No, he's not!" I would yell, though I secretly liked it that he wanted to be.

A few months after he'd moved to town, Daryl told me he wanted to show me something funny.

"If it's a skinned cat, I don't want to see it. I've already done that before," I said.

"Naw, it ain't nothin' like that," he said. "It's really funny. You'll laugh and laugh. Unless you're scared."

"'Course I'm not scared," I said.

The funny thing Daryl wanted to show me was in his house, which was dark inside and smelled like pee, and was even messier than our house, although in a different way. Our house was filled with stuff: papers, books, tools, lumber, our paper box beds and my bow and arrows. There was hardly anything in Daryl's house. No furniture. Not even wooden spool tables. It had only one room with three mattresses on the floor next to a TV. There was nothing on the walls, not a single picture. A naked light bulb hung from the ceiling, right next to three or four dangling spiral strips of flypaper so thick with flies that you couldn't see the sticky yellow surface underneath. Empty beer cans and whiskey bottles and a few half-eaten tins of Vienna sausages littered the floor. On one of the mattresses, Daryl's father was snoring unevenly. His mouth hung open, and flies were gathered in the stubble of his beard. A wet stain had darkened his pants nearly to his knees. I stared quietly, and then asked, "What's the funny thing?"

"Don't you see?" said Daryl, pointing at his dad. "He pissed himself!" Daryl started laughing.

I felt my face turning hot. "You're not supposed to laugh at your own daddy," I said to him. "Ever."

"Aw, now, don't go get all high-and-mighty on me," Daryl said, "Don't go and try and pretend you're better than me. 'Cause I know your daddy ain't nothin' but a drunk like mine."

I hated Daryl at that moment, I really did. I thought of telling him about how my dad taught me pi and the planets and all the things that made my daddy special and completely different from his, but I knew Daryl wouldn't understand.

"My daddy ain't nothin' like your daddy, Daryl Dixon! At least when he passes out he _never _pisses himself!"

At dinner that night, I started telling everyone about Daryl Dixon's disgusting dad and the ugly dump they lived in.

Mom put down her fork, "Daisy, I'm disappointed in you," she said. "You should show more compassion."

"Why?" I said. "He's bad. He's a JD."

"No child is born a delinquent," Mom said, "They only become that way," she went on, "if nobody loves them. Unloved children grow up to become serial killers or alcoholics." Mom looked pointedly at Dad and then back at me, "You should try to be nicer to Daryl. He doesn't have all the advantages that you kids do," she said. I wish I asked her what advantages we _did _have.


	2. Hostage

**AN: Thank you for all of the favorites/subs, and I would be so thankful if I got some more I need more reviews, favs, and subs though if you want more chaps, just so I know you're interested still. Thanks for the support though R&R for me, it would make my day. **

The next morning I got up early and had breakfast with the other guys that were going to rescue Merle. At first I was not going to go, for Annabelle's sake, but I didn't want to cower at Daryl's snide comments on it being bad luck to bringing a girl and when I heard there were a whole bag of guns waiting, I _had _to go. More protection for Annabelle. And I also wanted to get the tools for Dale, he has been nice to me ever since I came here and was the one that gave Anna and me a comfortable sleeping area.

All of the guys and I except Daryl, who was packing up weapons, ate our scrambled eggs heartily.

"So, Miss Daisy," Shane said, "Everyone is curious about you and Daryl."

I shrugged, "What about him?"

"Well, we all know why you hate his guts, but can you _possibly _tell us a bit about Daryl and Merle, just so we're all on the same page."

Did this guy really want me to tell him about Daryl and Merle? I furrowed my eyebrows and put my fork down, "Well it's not my story to tell. We both just grew up on the wrong side of the Tracks…_literally_." I mumbled.

"Wait, you both grew up on the Tracks?" Shane asked, amazed, "Well that's all I need to know."

"And you're judging us just by where we lived?" I asked, glaring at him, "How judgmental," I hissed, "Let me guess, you're a cop too?"

Shane looked up at me, surprised by my outburst, "As a matter-of-fact, yes, I am a cop."

"Well at least your cop buddy Rick was nice about knowing my past," I gestured towards him, "He, unlike other people, has seemed to realize that our past doesn't matter anymore. Ever since the fever broke out we've all had the same motives, live and kill. Where we grew up or what our social statuses are has no meanin' anymore. We're all the same." I picked up my plate and sighed, "When the hell are we leavin'? I wanna get this done and over with."

"We're leaving now," Daryl said, "So get the shit you want together and let's leave."

I put the dishes in the sink in the RV and walked over to Lori, who was shaking with worry. Slowly, I put a hand on her arm, "Hey, Rick's going to be alright. He's strong, ya know? He told me all about how he got here. It's enough to make me think that he'll always come back to you and Carl." Lori didn't say anything she just gave me a small smile and nodded. Walking back out of the RV I grabbed my bow and arrows, a few throwing knives and a hand gun with one bullet left.

Annabelle smiled at me before I left and hugged me, "You're the strongest and smartest one, Daisy. It's almost gonna be like huntin' I bet."

I smiled at her confidence in me, "Yeah, I bet. I left some knives in our tent for ya. I want you to have one or two on ya at all time. Alright?"

"Of course. With Lori's and Carol's permission can I teach Carl and Sophie how to throw knives, like you taught me too?" she asked hopefully.

"Sure," I nodded, "But you _have _to have their parents' permission. And I would feel a lot better if an adult was with ya when teachin'."

"Okay," she kissed my cheek, "I'll miss you sis."

"I'll miss you too. And I'll come back as soon as we get the stuff we need, alright?"

She nodded, "Alright, bye sis," Anna waved as she ran back to play with Carl and Sophie. I'll make sure I come back to her, even if it's the last thing I do.

I jumped into the back of the van with Rick, T-Dog, and Daryl, and Glenn in the front driving. As T-Dog and Daryl bickered about getting Merle, Rick carefully asked me some more questions. Once again the interrogator, "Pretty girl like you, did ya have a boyfriend before all this?" he gestured everywhere.

I nodded, "Yeah, I did. Didn't survive obviously. Had to put a bullet through his head once the fever took him over."

Looking up I noticed Daryl smirking at me as if to say, "Remember me?"

_Flashback _

The next time I saw Daryl, I told him I'd be his friend—but not his girlfriend—if he promised not to make fun of anyone's dad. Daryl promised. But he still kept trying to be my boyfriend. He told me that if I'd be his girlfriend, he would always protect me and make sure nothing bad ever happened to me. If I wouldn't be his girlfriend, he said, I'd be sorry. I told him if he didn't want to be just friends, fine with me, I wasn't scared of him.

After about a week, I was hanging out with some other kids from the Tracks watching garbage burn in a big rusty trash can. They were all throwing in pieces of brush to keep the fire going, plus chunks of tire treads, and we cheered at the thick black rubber smoke that made out noses sting as it rolled past us into the air.

Daryl came up to me and pulled my arm, motioning me away from the other kids. He dug into his pocket and pulled out a turquoise and silver ring. "It's for you," he said.

I took it and turned it over in my hand. I ran it across my teeth and tongue like Mom had taught me too. I could tell by the slightly bitter taste that it was real silver.

"Where'd you get this?" I asked.

"It used to be my mom's," Daryl said.

It sure was a pretty ring. It had a simple thin band and an oval shaped piece of dark turquoise held in place by snaking silver strands. I didn't have any jewelry and it had been a long time since anyone had given me a present, except the bow and arrows I got when I was four.

I tried on the ring. It was way too big for my finger, but I could wrap yarn around the band the way high school girls did when they wore their boyfriend's rings. I was afraid, however, that if I took the ring, Daryl might start thinking that I had agreed to be his girlfriend. He'd tell all the other kids, and if I said it wasn't true, he'd point to the ring. On the other hand, I figured Mom would approve, since accepting it would make Daryl feel good about himself. I decided to compromise.

"I'll keep it," I said. "But I'm not going to wear it."

Daryl's smile spread all across his face.

"But don't think this means we're boyfriend and girlfriend," I said. "And don't think this means you can kiss me."

_Present _

I shook my head as if to get the memory out of my head, but I still had the ring…along with other miscellaneous objects from my past in one of the many pockets in my backpack. Finally, Glenn parked the car and said, "We walk from here." He parked on the train tracks, go figure, and we all hopped out. I had five knives stuffed in my Ariat boots, the one bullet gun stuffed in the back of my pants, handle out, bow in my hands and arrows on my back and we ran up the tracks towards the city.

"Merle or the guns first?" Rick asked.

"Merle," said Daryl, "We ain't even havin' this conversation."

Rick turned over to Glenn, "You know the geographies better, what's your call?"

"Merle first, we'll get the guns when we're heading back, Merle first." Glenn said as we rain towards the streets.

I set one of the quivers in the bow as we run and all I can think about is getting my hands on that bag of guns. I've kind of became a gun addict when the apocalypse came, but could you blame me? I learned how to shoot a gun when I was three years old, that's just what happens when you have a psycho father and mother who have no conscience of child safety.

We got the building that Merle was supposedly handcuffed to and we walked through the department store on the bottom. Rick spotted a walker and it only took a second before I put an arrow through its head, "Good shot," Rick said.

"Thanks," I said as I got the arrow out of its head and put it back in place. We ran up the stairs, Daryl in the front, eager to get to his brother and me at the back making sure no geeks followed us. T-Dog cut the lock with pliers and Daryl kicked the door open. "Merle!" he shouted, "Merle!" We ran onto the roof and we all stopped when we saw Merle's beefy and bloody hand on the ground, next to saw and handcuffs.

My mouth hung open as I stared at the hand and Daryl as he screamed angrily with a few tears streaming down his face that he quickly wiped away. I honestly felt bad for Daryl. His brother may be dead. I know Merle may be an ass, but he's god damn strong and willing to do that to himself. When he stopped crying he angrily drew his crossbow up to T-Dog's head, and less than a second later Rick's pistol was aimed at Daryl's head. "I won't hesitate," Rick said, "And I don't care if every single walker in this city hears it."

Daryl sighed and put the crossbow down in defeat. "Do you have a rag or something?" he asked.

T-Dog handed him a blue bandana and Daryl carefully set it down on the cement. He picked up the hand by the pinkie finger and sighed, "That crazy son of a bitch." Daryl set the hand down on the bandana and wrapped it up. He walked over and Glenn, with a sad and disgusted look on his face, did nothing as he put the useless hand in his backpack. "There's not much blood, he went on. He must've covered it or stopped the blood flow with his belt." We followed the trail of blood Merle left for us to an opening on the roof that led to some stairs. As we went down Daryl called for his brother and we took out a few more walkers. We came to a couple already dead ones and Daryl smirked, "Merle must've killed them, one handed. Tough as hell if I ever met my brother."

"Yeah, but any man could pass out from blood loss," Rick pointed out, "No matter how strong he is."

The blood lead us to what looked like an employee kitchen, where Sterno cans burn next to an iron steak weight crusted with skin. "He must've cauterized the stump." Glenn gagged and I just watched quietly.

"I told you. Nobody could kill Merle, but Merle."

"Rick's right though…" I murmured, "He's lost a lot of blood, Daryl."

Daryl ignored me and walked over to the busted and bloody window that lead out to the building stairs. "He busted out?!" Glenn asked, surprised, "Why the hell would he do that?!"

"He's out there alone for all he knows," Daryl said, his only explanation, "He's gotta do what he's gotta do. Survivin'."

"You call that survivin'?!" T-Dog asked, "Wanderin' out into the middle of the streets, maybe passing out?"

"Better than be handcuffed to the top of a buildin' to rot by you sorry pricks," he said rather loudly. I didn't want to agree that he had a point. Daryl went on to Rick, "You couldn't kill 'em. And ya ain't so worried about some sorry dumb bastard."

"What about a thousand dumb bastards?" asked Rick with his brows raised, "Different story?"

"Take a tally, I don't care. I'm goin' out to find my brother," he headed to the door, but Rick pushed him back, "Get your hands off me!" he yelled. From the corner of my eye I saw the exasperated look on Glenn's face as he silently told Daryl to shut up. "You can't stop me!"

"I don't blame you," Rick said, "He's family I get that. I went through hell to find mine. I know how it feels. We can go around a few blocks and try to find him, but only if we keep a level head."

Daryl stared him down, "I can do that."

"Only if we get those guns first," T-Dog said, "'Cause I'm not wanderin' the streets for that sorry ass with just my good intentions."

So that was settled. We walked into the office where Glenn drew up a plan on the floor with some Sharpie.

"You're not goin' out there alone," Rick argued.

"I don't like the idea and I don't even like you much," Daryl said.

"It's a good idea," Glenn tried to explain as I sat next to him and watched. "'K if you just hear me out. If we go out in a group we're slow, drawing attention to ourselves. If I'm alone, I can move fast. Look," he gestured to a large paper clip, between two drawn out buildings, "That's the tank, five blocks from where we are now," he then set a crumpled up piece of paper next to it, "That's the bag of guns," he pointed to the alley right next to them, "This is the alley I dragged you out to the top of the building. That's where Daryl and Daisy and I will be?"

I looked at him as if he were nuts, "Why me and him?" I asked.

"Because your arrows and his crossbow are quieter than their guns," Glenn gestured towards Rick and T-Dog. "While Daryl and Daisy wait here in the alley, I run up, grab the guns and get the hell out."

"What about me and T-Dog?" Rick asked.

"Right," Glenn said as if he almost forgot about them, "You'll be in this alley here." He put a large Papermate Pink Pearl eraser two blocks away from the guns and tank.

"Two block away?" Rick said, "Why?"

"I might not be able to come back the same way," Glenn explained, "Walker might cut me off. If that happens, I won't come back to the Daryl and Dixie; I'll run back to you and T-Dog. Whatever direction I go, I've got you in both places to cover for me. After that we'll all meet up back here."

"Hey kid," Daryl said, "What did you do before all this?"

Glenn looked up, surprised, "Pizza delivery."

We all took that as a good answer and headed out to our spots. Loading up his crossbow Daryl said snidely, "You've got some balls for a China man."

"I'm Korean," he said running out through the alley. I smirked.

"Whatever," Daryl said, pointing his crossbow at the end of the alley. I was at his back, facing the other end of the alley. As Glenn ran through the streets some boy crept up the alley.

"Daryl!" I hissed. He turned around, both of our bows aimed at the kid.

He put his hands up, "Woah, don't shoot, don't shoot."

"We're lookin' for my brother have you seen him?" Daryl asked.

The kid started shouting for somebody and angrily I kicked him to the ground. With Daryl's foot on his chest I covered his mouth, "Shut the hell up man! Are you stupid?! There's walkers everywhere!"

That's when a man took out Daryl and another one kicked my gut. The men kept on kicking Daryl and I to the ground and soon Glenn ran in, hoping for a safe haven. The air kept on getting knocked out of me and I couldn't breathe. Daryl kept on calling my name and soon I felt my head being covered by a bag. One of the men grabbed me by the waist and flung me over his shoulder. I screamed and kicked, but that didn't seem to bother the bulk man. I heard an arrow being pushed out of Daryl's crossbow and the man holding me fell to the ground with a yelp. My body smashed against the fence before I smashed to the cement, head first. I felt blood in my mouth and I quickly pulled the bag off of my head. Before I could even get up one of the men grabbed me again. It all happened so fast. My vision was blurry as I was shoved into a car. My ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton and I could barely hear a thing. I tried to keep my eyes open, but then all I saw was darkness.

I woke up with yet another bag over my head and I heard arguing down below. Then two big beefy hands grabbed my clasped arms and pulled me forwards. I stumbled weakly and all I could think about was what Daryl said about me being a liability. _Shit. _But they came so fast. They almost took Glenn too.

The bag was ripped off of my head and I cried out beneath the tape over my mouth. Daryl, Rick and a few other men looked up at me.

"We've never had a carrot top before," one of the men down below said in a Spanish accent, "If you don't give me those guns I might order my men to have a go with her."

My eyes widened and I struggled against the men, but if I pulled too hard I might fall off the damned building.

"You see," the man said, "If you come back with my man and the bag of guns, it will be an easy trade, but if you come back locked and loaded, it'll be a bloodbath."

I wanted to scream at them when they left not to give them the guns that I wasn't worth it. But after they left one of the men untied my hands and I ripped the tape off of my mouth.

"We're not going to hurt you," one of the men said.

"What was goin' on down there then, huh? Gonna have a go with me now?" I yelled.

"Follow us, we'll show you what this place is all about."

I couldn't help but to follow them from the roof. This place was a nursing home. None of them told about the walkers so as not to worry them. I didn't say a word as I watched a man named Mr. Gilbert have an asthma attack. I couldn't understand. Why did they act all high and mighty when all they did was take care of old people?

Suddenly the man who was talking to Rick and Daryl came up and helped Mr. Gilbert with an inhaler.

"What the hell is this?" my head bolted up and Rick, Daryl, T-Dog and Glenn stood there. I ran towards them, hoping I didn't look crazy.

After Rick talked with Guillermo we started heading out again. Daryl handed me back my bow and arrows that fell to the ground. I trembled. These people came back to save and left with me and half of the ammo they came for gone. "Thank you," I murmured.

"No need for that," Rick said, "It's what we would've done for anyone."

I felt so, so bad. "I guess Daryl is right, I am a frickin' liability. I'm sorry; it's just that they came at us so fast…"

"You are no liability, Daisy," Rick said, "You have the best aim in camp as far as I know. Good fighter too, you're right though, they did come at ya fast."

"If it makes you feel any better, they almost grabbed me too," Glenn said with a small smile. I smiled back.

We walked out of the city only to find the van gone. "Where the hell is the van?" I asked.

"We left it right there!" Glenn said, "Who would take it?"

"Merle," Rick said, giving us a good explanation.

"He's gonna be takin' some vengeance back to camp…" Daryl said.

"Annabelle…" I murmured and started running back, bow and arrows in hand. I ran as fast as I could. Running ahead of the rest, all I could think about was what crazy thing Merle would do and Anna in danger at the hand of that crazy hick. When I heard screams and gun shots I ran faster, "Oh my God."

Walkers were all over the camp. Everyone was fighting and in the flurry of people I couldn't see Anna. "Anna!" I screamed, "Annabelle!"

Amy screamed and before I could get to her a walker bit into her arm. I took out my bow and soon enough an arrow was in its brain. It was too late for Amy though. Load. Shoot. Load. Shoot. I kept on repeating that process as I killed random walkers.

"Look out!" I hear from behind me. I turn to see a walker not a foot away from me but then taken out and Daryl right behind it. He pushes me behind him as my shield. I wouldn't have any of that. I tried to push past him so I could fight the herd in our camp but he wouldn't let me through. With one shot each, I took out the walkers coming from the side as I saw people in our camp being devoured. Daryl was smashing in heads but still managed to keep his arm around me so I couldn't jump ahead. So I ran from the side and grabbed Annabelle who was with Carl and Lori. We ran over to the cars as shields and I kept on shooting walkers away from us.

Once the walkers were all taken out, Amy and Ed were gone. Already two parts of my new family were dead.


	3. Close Your Eyes

**AN: Thank you for all of the favorites/subs, and I would be so thankful if I got some more I need more reviews, favs, and subs though if you want more chaps, just so I know you're interested still. Thanks for the support though R&R for me, it would make my day.**

After the attack, everyone was either sobbing or giving hugs, except for Annabelle and me. I felt as if we shouldn't be there. We've only spent a little over a day with these people and I guess you could say I didn't know them well enough to feel bad. I mean I know how it feels to lose someone and I sympathize for them all, but I really didn't know how to give my condolences without it coming out as awkward. They were a nice group, for sure, but I still didn't know what to do about the lives lost.

Annabelle and I just stood there for a moment, watching, until she looked up at me and whispered, "Daisy?"

"Yeah, sweetie?" I asked, looking down at her.

"I don't want to sound like a whiner, but…I have guts all over my dress." She said. I didn't even notice, I guess it's because I'm used to the guts on me. Her pale blue dress was covered in thick blood and other stuff I didn't want to identify. I looked down, my favorite blue jeans and my white tank top was covered in it too.

"How about we go change and then go to the quarry to wash it off. Does that sound good?" she smiled and nodded.

Going into our tent we got changed. Anna wore blue jeans, her olive colored jacket and a pale blue T-shirt. I got changed into my dark wash skinny jeans, my crème colored tank top and olive colored blouse. Before we left to clean our clothing I dug into that one side pocket of my back pack and pulled out the silver and turquoise ring and shoved it in my pocket. I always meant to give it back to him and I should now or sometime soon. He probably would like something from his mom in a world like this…or not.

Lori came down with her family's clothes, saying that they got blood and guts all over them too. And as we washed our clothes, Lori and I both talked about the walkers and the people lost, until Anna whispered in my ear, "That guy, Daryl, he's watching us."

I turned around and there he was, at the top of the hill looking down on us with his crossbow hanging lazily in his arms as if it were a security blanket that he couldn't let go of. Some damn security blanket. Lori turned around, "Is he bothering you?"

I shook my head, "Just ignore him, he'll leave sooner or later." But I could feel his eyes stare at the back of my head. What was his problem?! When we were done cleaning our clothes we hung them up at the perimeter of the camp, but Daryl was still watching us. That was the last straw. When I put my tank top to dry I stormed over to where he was standing. "What the hell is your problem?!"

"Nothin'. After last night it's easy to assume that it's not safe around here anymore. Can't go walkin' around alone." He said, his Southern accent was annoying, but mine was probably equally bad maybe even worse. But his being…ugh. He just annoyed me. Bottom line.

"If you hadn't noticed, Daryl, I wasn't alone. I was with Lori and Anna."

He smirked, "But were you armed?"

I pulled the knife I held in my boots out and put it to the stubble on his neck, "Of course. Now why would you think otherwise?"

At first I thought he was going to give me some sly comment about me being raised with knives or something against my family, but he didn't say anything, just that smirk that always seems to say, "We're equal Daisy Jackson." I felt my piss-off face fall and we just looked at each other for a few moments and I could hear the younger Daryl in my mind from when we were kids, "Now close your eyes." And soon our lips were moving together.

_Flashback_

I didn't tell anyone about the ring, not even my sister. I kept it in my pants pocket during the day, and at night I hid it in the bottom of the cardboard box where I kept my clothes.

But Daryl Dixon had to go and shoot his mouth off about giving me the ring. He started telling the other kids things like how, as soon as I was old enough, me and him were going to get married. When I found out what he was saying, I knew accepting the ring had been a mistake. I also knew I should return it, so Daryl could give it to a girl who would want it. But I didn't. I meant to, and every morning I'd put it in my pocket with the intention of giving it back, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. That ring was too darn pretty.

A few weeks later, I was playing hide-and-seek along the Tracks with some of the neighborhood kids. I found the perfect place, a small tool shed behind a clump of sagebrush that no one had hid in before. But just as the kid who was It was finishing counting, the door opened and someone else tried to get in. It was Daryl Dixon. He hadn't even been playing with us.

"You can't hide with me," I hissed at him. "You're supposed to find your own place."

"It's too late," he said. "He's almost done counting."

Daryl crawled inside. The shed was tiny, with barely enough room for one person to fit in crouched over. I wasn't about to say so, but being that close to Daryl scared me. "It's too crowded!" I whispered. "You gotta leave."

"No," Daryl said. "We can fit." He rearranged his legs so they were pressed up against mine. We were so close I could feel his breath on my face.

"It's too crowded," I said again. "And you're breathing on me."

He pretended not to hear me. I could hear the muffled shouts of the other kids being chased by the boy who was It. I wished I hadn't chosen such a good hiding place. "Ever kissed anyone?" he asked.

In the narrow ray of light that shot through the gaps in the sides of the shed, I could see the rings of dirt around his skinny neck. "Of course I have."

"Who?"

"My dad."

"Your dad doesn't count. Someone not in your family. And with your eyes closed. It doesn't count unless your eyes are closed."

"That's about the dumbest thing I ever heard," I told Daryl, "If your eyes were closed, you can't see who you're kissin'."

"There's an awful lot about men and women you don't know, Daisy Jackson. Some men stick knives into women while they're kissin' them, especially if the women are being mean and didn't want to be kissed. But I'd never do that to you, Daisy." He put his face up to mine, "Close your eyes."

"No way," I said.

Daryl pressed his lips against mine. When I tried to pull away, he pushed in toward me. The more I pulled, the more he pushed.

I couldn't knee him in the groin like Dad had told me to if a guy jumped on me, because my knees were outside his legs, so I bit him hard on the ear. It must have hurt, because he yelled and jumped back so his body hit the top of the shed.

The other kids heard the ruckus and came running. One of them opened the shed door and Daryl and I scrambled out.

"I kissed Daisy!" Daryl yelled.

"Did not!" I said. "He's a liar! We just got into a fight, that's all."

He _was _a liar, I told myself the rest of the day. I hadn't really kissed him, or at least it didn't count. My eyes had been open the entire time.

_Present_

My eyes shot open and so did his and at the same time we pushed each other away and said, "What the hell?!"

"Don't _ever _do that again," I hissed and stormed off back to the camp. Why did I do that?! No it was all him, I reassured myself. Did anyone see us? That's what I worried about the most.

Shane was taking down his tent and I saw all of his stuff on the ground. That's when I noticed all of the others were doing it too. "Hey Shane, why's everyone packin' up?" I asked.

"Well Rick's plan was to go to CDC, while I suggested the Army base if Fort Benning, but _no_, we're going to CDC."

I could tell he was annoyed and I had some doubts about CDC of my own, "You're right, the base is probably a safer bet. I've been to CDC, I mean I haven't been in it but I think I witnessed the last person there taking the easy way out."

Shane stopped what he was doing and looked up at me, "You what?" Before I could answer he lifted his hand up to silence me and walked over to Rick. Rick stopped what he was doing to listen to Shane and soon enough Shane pointed his finger at me and they both started walking back to where I was standing.

"Daisy," Rick said, "What exactly did you witness at CDC?"

"Well, it was broad daylight when I went over there. I kind of spied the place for awhile, ya know? Dead bodies were everywhere, all shot. I was about to try to go in there, but then…"

"But then what?" Rick prodded.

I sighed, "I heard a gunshot go off and one of the windows lit up, not into flames, but the shot of the gun…that's when I stopped myself from going in. I thought that was the last person there."

Rick showed hesitation and Shane sighed, "Come on, Rick! The girl may be right. There may be no one there. And then what's the point? We then lose gas and then we got nothin' to eat. It gets dark out and the walkers start comin'. Just come on, listen to the girl."

The only good reason Rick wanted to go to the CDC was because someone may be there to give a cure to Jim, who got bitten the other night. "I'm sorry, but-."

I cut him off, "Look, Rick. I know what it's like when you feel as if you need to save everyone you meet. I've been there. There was a whole group of people in the city who found me and made me their leader, but one by one, their body would either be missing, they'd kill themselves or they were just too chewed up to even become a walker. I felt as if I let them all down. I don't know how it all happened, but finally Anna and I were once again the last ones standing. I don't mean this in a harsh or rude way, but Jim is just one guy. If it were me, I wouldn't want you to risk all of your lives for a slim chance to cure one person. Just please…let him go."

At first I thought I struck a chord in Rick, but he shook his head, "Do you really think the base would be any better? It's death either way."

I clenched my fists and I felt my face turn red, "I know it's my fault we lost half of our ammo, but we may have more than you could ever imagine at the base!"

Rick just shook his head again and walked away. I kicked the dirt as Shane shouted, "Damn!"

Looking up at Shane I asked, "If you wanna go to the base I'll be more than happy to join you."

"Naw, it's fine," he said, walking back to the stuff he was packing.

"What the hell Shane?! Who made Rick Grimes our leader?!"

Shane looked up at me sadly and I just stormed back and started packing my things that haven't even been here long enough to call home. That night I went to sleep thinking about the CDC, the base, Shane being the leader, Daryl's ring and the thing that I thought about most…his kiss.


	4. Never Have I Ever

**AN: Thank you for all of the favorites/subs, and I would be so thankful if I got some more I need more reviews, favs, and subs though if you want more chaps, just so I know you're interested still. Thank you for the support and please R&R it would make my day. Every review I get is like opening up a Christmas or Birthday present **

After our ceremony for the dead the next morning, I threw mine and Annabelle's stuff in the back of my beaten and old Ford pickup truck next to my new Honda Blackbird, which is covered with a tarp. That motorcycle is my baby. It's sleek and black and goes up to 190 mph. It's gorgeous. Getting into the truck, Annabelle hopped in next to me and she took a nap while on the drive. About a mile in I started to feel tired too. I barely got any sleep the other night, but could you blame me?

The RV, which was in front of me pulled over to a stop and I followed. Hopping out of the car I ran over to the others, "What's goin' on?" I asked.

"It's Jim," Jacqui sobbed, "I don't think he can make it." She put her hands to her face and cried harder, before we could say anything Annabelle ran up and hugged her. She murmured something to Jacqui in a small voice but I couldn't hear her.

Rick went into the RV and came back out with Jim. Jim wanted to be left there. We all helped him to the side of the road and propped him against a tree in the shade.

I walked over to him and carefully took out the one bullet gun from my pants. Kneeling down in front of him I talked so only he could hear, "Jim, I don't know you well, but I know that nobody should ever go through this. And you don't have to. Nobody is going to judge you if you take this gun. It only has one bullet in it and I…I am so, so sorry." I didn't know what else to say. Everybody watched me as I silently talked to Jim on his death bed. Jim slowly put his hand on mine and at first I thought he was going to take it, but instead he pushed the gun towards me.

"No sweetie, I'm fine. I don't need it," he said with a small and kind smile.

I furrowed my eyebrows at him. I was going to tell him to take it once more, but I decided not to. This was his death after all. So I stood up, put the gun where it was before and watched as the rest of the group said goodbye. Daryl gave Jim a small nod and soon he went back to his own truck. I looked back at Jim and whispered, "Sorry."

When I got back into the truck I wanted to scream and yell, "I told you so!" at the top of my lungs. Why did Rick make us do this? I wish I went to the base, just me and Annabelle.

As we approached CDC I noticed it looked exactly the same as it did before. Dead bodies everywhere. There isn't really another way to describe it. I threw my backpack over my shoulder and held my bow up defensively as the group approached the building, which was locked tight. Daryl and I were at the back of the group, ready to fight the walkers coming our way as it got dark out. And soon Annabelle came up next to me with throwing knives in hand and a ferocious look on her face. I smiled down at her. That's my girl.

Walkers began approaching us from all sides. "Damnit, Rick. We told you Fort Benning was a better choice."

In a scared voice Lori murmured, "We're out of gas." Typical. They may be out of gas, but I'm not.

Rick noticed the camera moving and he screamed at it, "I know you're in there! If you don't let us in you're killing us!" He kept on screaming as Shane tried pulling him away and when I thought there was no hope for us here, the doors opened. And we all ran inside.

"Anyone infected?!" A man yelled as we entered the building's lobby. After Rick told him about Jim and that none of us were infected the guy still seemed a bit unsure about all of us. "I'll let you stay here if you agree to do a blood test."

"Damn," I said, "I'll be your lab rat as long as I'm safe from the walkers."

"Alright, I guess that settles it," the man said, "I'm Doctor Edwin Jenner." He gestured the elevators open doors.

We all crammed into the elevator awkwardly. I was in squished between Daryl and Annabelle. Anna rested her head on me and practically pushed me into Daryl. I don't think she realized she was even doing it. My back was pressed up against Daryl's chest and I felt him breathe in deeply. And as everyone stumbled out, Daryl whispered in my ear, "You smell amazin'."

I turned around with a raised brow, but he didn't look at me and instead pushed passed me and got of the elevator with everyone else. Was that a joke? Because the last time I cleaned myself was like a week ago.

Shaking my head, I walked out with the rest of them and waited in line for a needle to be poked into my arm. Andrea went up and the doctor noted how pale she was.

"We haven't eaten a good meal in days, Dr. Jenner," Jacqui said.

After we all submitted to our blood test we went to what looked like a dining hall and Jenner and Jacqui started heating up the grills.

"Hey Doc?" Shane said, "Is there any liquor around here? I need a drink. I think we all do."

All of us except the kids looked up expectantly for his reply. "There's some in the cabinet in the back. Grab as many as you like…"

I jumped out of my chair and ran/slid over there like a kid. T-Dog and Daryl were right behind me and we smiled at the good stuff inside. I pulled out some of the bottles, "Patron Tequila Silver. Crown Royal Whiskey. Doc you sure know how to fill a hard liquor cabinet. This is the good stuff!"

Lori came over and asked, "What about wine?"

"Echelon Pinot Noir," I handed her the bottle, "One of the best wines there is."

After the kids went up to bed and a few other people there was only Shane, T-Dog, Glenn and Daryl and I left. We were wild and at some point I remember getting up on the table and dancing when T-Dog put The Devil Went Down to Georgia on. As the music blared we howled as we drank and laughed as we tried to talk, but when the liquor started to run low I suggested something really, really stupid. "Hey, you wanna play never have I ever?"

Glenn hiccupped, "What the hell is that?"

"Okay, someone says 'never have I ever ridden a rollercoaster until I puked'. And all who has done it takes a shot. The first person to stumble over their words loses," I explained.

Shane leaned down into his chair and howled, "Bring it on!"

"Okay, I'll start," I said, "Never have I ever been in handcuffs."

Me, T-Dog and Daryl all drank at that one. I wonder what T-Dog did, but I remember Daryl being put in handcuffs for something…I just couldn't remember, my memory was all blurry. I was put in handcuffs when I was nineteen.

Shane went next, "Never have I ever drank underage." We all took shots at that one.

T-Dog stroked his chin as he tried to choose one, "Never have I ever…been approached by a hooker." All except Glenn and I took a shot. I looked at them all in disgust.

"Holy shit," I said scrunching up my nose.

Glenn coughed, "Alright, my turn. Never…have…I ever…" Glenn suddenly got up, ran, and we heard him barf in another room.

We started howling with laughter once more, "Glenn, you're out!"

"Yeah, I got that. Goodnight."

Spinning his shot around the table, Daryl looked at me as he said, "Never have I ever killed someone in cold blood."

Everything went silent then and Shane's and T-Dog's eyes went to me as I took my shot.


	5. Hunger

**Thank you all for the reviews and favs! I love how you were all like, 'Whoa! Who'd she kill?!' I adore those kinds of reactions, haha. Keep on reviewing for more chapters and thanks again **

I woke up in the morning with a major migraine. What the hell happened last night? The only thing I remembered was the drinks and some dancing. Annabelle was sleeping on the couch. Aw, sweetie letting me sleep on the king sized bed. Groaning, I walked over to what looked like the bathroom.

This was probably the nicest bathroom I've ever been in in my entire life. Sad how I think a bathroom is nice, I know. It was basically a lounge filled with mirrors, plush cognac-colored leather couches, one of those fancy remote controlled toilets, a wooden basket containing Nexxus hairspray, Tampax, and little bottles of Purrell and some perfumes. This obviously must've been a girl's room.

Before Annabelle woke up, I hopped into the shower and washed myself in the lavender and jasmine scented soaps. _Awww yeahhh, _I thought as the warm water hit my back. It felt amazing. Wrapping a warm, white towel around myself, I collapsed in a chair at one of the vanities and inspected my reflection in the mirror. My thin face, framed by fiery red tendrils, and eyes that looked periwinkle in some light and ocean-blue in others. I had a scar on my upper lip from a switch blade my father put to me when I was ten and a bunch of freckles that I used to wish would go away, but I really don't care now.

I put on a black tee, dark wash jeans, my army green jacket and my favorite (and only) pair of Ariat Macey hiking boots. I was bad with hair so I just threw it up in the messiest bun ever. Thinking about what if we had to pick up and leave, I threw some Tampax, Purrell and one bottle of perfume in my back pack. It's not stealing when their dead.

As I waited for Annabelle to wake up, I stuffed some knives in my boots, put the gun in its normal spot and cleaned my bow and arrows.

Finally, the heavy sleeper woke up with a rub of her eyes and tiredly getting into her days clothes. Without saying a word to me she brushed her teeth, combed her hair and then put knives in her pockets. Just another morning to us.

We walked down stairs together, armed and ready to leave at a moment's notice.

When we got to the dining hall Lori greeted me with a smile, "How ya feelin' after all the drinkin' last night?"

I rubbed my eyes, "Ugh, besides the piercing headache I'm fine and dandy."

Carol smiled at me and handed me some Advil, "Here."

I took two pills and downed it without water and sighed, "Gosh, I hope that stuff kicks in fast."

T-Dog, surprisingly not having a headache of his own, gave me a plate of eggs and bacon. Oh how I missed bacon…I started to eat slowly, trying to savor every bite, but I couldn't help filling myself up. I don't think I lived a day in my life where I had enough to eat.

_Flashback_

About a week after what Daryl did, he came up to me when I was playing with the other kids at the Tracks and apologized for what he did. If you knew Daryl like I did, you would be taken aback just like I was. He said that he agreed just to be friends, but of course Daryl wasn't just doing this because he thought it was right, he needed help.

"Ever since Merle has been locked up again and my dad drinks his paycheck…I haven't got anythin' to eat. I know your family is the poorest on the Tracks," I scowled at him as he went on. "I was just wonderin' what you and Lori do."

I sympathized for Daryl, sure, and he seemed sincere on just being friends, but did I want to help him? Kind of. "My dad drinks away his paycheck, like yours, but my mom, whenever she gets hers, she spends it on food."

Daryl's shoulders slumped in disappointment, "I don't wanna ask you for food or anythin' so-."

"And you won't have to," I said, "'Cause tomorrow I'm goin' to show you what I do for food. Meet me out here in the afternoon, alright?"

Daryl had a smile from ear to ear and he nodded, "Alright." And he ran off.

My mom didn't really get a paycheck from a job or anything; she just got a check from the oil company leasing the drilling rights on her land in Texas. Mom was always vague about how big the land was and where exactly it was, and she refused to consider selling it. All we knew was that every couple months, this check would show up and mom would buy some food that could hold us up for a few days.

I never knew that she lived in Texas once. She grew up and lived in Arizona when dad first met her. That's where I lived with Grandma until I was seven and we lived in random areas ever since then for a few months at a time. Living in Phoenix was always fun. It's where I learned to ride horses and Grandma, I felt, was the only person that was actually family who loved me.

The next day I met Daryl at the spot I'd said we'd meet up at. I showed him what I did when there was no food in the kitchen. Within a few days he became a pro and we would go on scavenging trips together as a team, just as friends and thinking about nothing else except the food that went into our stomachs.

In the spring on Easter we caught a snow white rabbit in a trap Daryl made and I killed it with the switch blade my dad got me for Christmas. We learned how to cook dead animals together and soon we were adding more animals onto our list.

We picked crab apples and wild blackberries during the summer and fall, and we swiped ears of corn from Old Man Wilson's farm. The corn was tough and Wilson grew it to feed his cattle, but if you chewed it enough you could get it down. Once I shot a blackbird with my bow and arrows and figured we could make a blackbird pie, like in the nursery rhyme. But it looked to scrawny to eat.

One day, hunting for food, I asked Daryl, "What does your brother do when he's not locked up?"

Daryl stopped picking berries for a moment and shrugged, "Why do you care?"

"Jeesh, I was just askin'."

After we filled the wooden basket full of berries Daryl finally said, "He races horses."

I smiled, thinking he was kidding, "Really?"

He scowled at me, "Yeah, is there somethin' funny about that?"

Shaking my head I said, "No, nothing at all. It's just I never would imagine him racing horses…Where does he keep his horse?"

"He boards it at a friend's farm for a dollar a day, but he has to buy the feed and all too." It was hard to imagine Merle having friends, none the less racing a horse. "That's why we're always out of money when he's in jail. He usually wins the races so he gets prize money." Now I understood why Daryl came to me that day. No money, no food.

"I know how to ride horses," I said, "I was never in a real race though. I raced Lori, but that was just for fun in the fields."

He nodded, "I would sign you up for a race so we could split the money if I could, but the racer has to be a guy sixteen or older."

I shrugged, "Maybe in a few years you could race."

Daryl shook his head, "I don't ride. And Merle would be pissed if I stole his spotlight."

_Present_

I came back down to earth from my silent reverie when Daryl walked past me and grabbed a piece of toast and poured himself some OJ. As I watched Daryl watch me, I tried figuring out what happened last night. I barely remembered a thing and I hated to think that I did something really stupid.

Getting out of my seat, I walked over to where Daryl was leaning on a wall and bluntly asked, "What happened last night?"

He smirked, "Good mornin' to you too."

"Tell me."

"Well what do you remember?" Daryl said with a grin, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I remember dancin' to The Devil Went Down to Georgia…and my memory cuts off from there."

His grin grew, "You don't remember you blowing off your big secret?"

My eyes widened, "What!?" I hissed.

"I just wanted to see you take that shot," he said with a smile, giving nothing away, and he stalked off to the other side of the room.

Beginning to get really paranoid I raked my brain for what I said or did, but nothing came up. It was like some wiped my memory. There was only one big secret I ever kept. It wasn't really a secret though; the cops were after me when it happened a few days before the fever broke. But how could Daryl possibly know about that?

After eating breakfast, Jenner led us to the room with all of the computers in it. The one he took us to last night before we all got drunk. The control center, Jenner called it. He got Vi to display the scans of "Test Subject 19," who was infected and allowed the process to be recorded. The display showed the virus attacking the brain, which went dark. Jenner fast-forwarded it to the "second event" –TS-19's resurrection.

"It restarts the brain?" Lori asked.

"Just the brainstem," Jenner corrected, "The human part…that doesn't come back."

After he explained to us what happened a bullet went through the patients head.

"God," Carol said, "What was that?"

I watched and quietly I said, "That's what I saw when I came here. Wasn't it? It was July fourth when I came here and saw that…"

Jenner turned around and looked at me, "That was you on the security monitor?" he asked.

I shrugged, "I came here to see if anyone could help me, but before I could come up I heard a gunshot… I thought that was the last person in this place. I guess I was wrong."

Jenner and everybody else looked at me and I felt uncomfortable. "I wasn't the only one here when this happened," Jenner said, "I was the only one who paid attention to TS-19's results while the rest were getting excited when proximity alarms sounded and they saw you in the security monitor. But right after I put a bullet in TS-19's head, they said you ran off..."

"What happened to the others?" I asked.

"They killed themselves." Jenner said simply, no emotion in his voice, "The wave of suicides started two days after you showed up and left."

Looking down at the floor I murmured, "I'm sorry…but aren't there any other facilities?"

"There may be some," Jenner said, "People like me."

Rick's face got red in anger, "You don't know? How could you _not _know?"

"Everything went down. Communications, directives…all of it. I have been in the dark for almost a month."

Andrea stepped up, "So it's not just here. There's is _nothing _left _anywhere. _That's what you're saying, right?"

Jenner didn't say anything and we all knew that it was true. Everything was gone.

Daryl put a hand on his head, "Shit, I'm gonna get drunk."

"There's no more liquor, remember?" I hissed. Turning back to Jenner I asked, "Where do you get energy anyway? I mean you would think that since nobody is alive to run the power plants it would all close down, right?"

"There are two giant hamsters running in a giant wheel in the underground lair," Jenner said blandly.

"Yeah," I scoffed sarcastically, "that's funny."

"That clock," Dale said ignoring our rant, pointing at what looked like a timer that is now at one hour left, "What happens at zero?"

"The basement generators…" Jenner said weakly, "They run out of fuel."

"Fantastico," I said. "I'm out of here."

I started walking towards the exits and Jenner said, "There's no way out. The doors that you came through last night, they closed, forever."

Turning around to face him I smirked, "Nothing lasts forever, Doc."

Rick, Shane, Glenn and T-Dog went down to the basement to check it out for themselves. The rest of us went back to our rooms silently to wait. As Annabelle and I sat on the bed she looked up at me and asked, "Do you really think we can't get out?"

I shook my head, "We can get out, I know we can."

"How do you know?"

Looking down at her I sighed, "I know when someone is lyin', Anna. He was lyin'. Perhaps they won't open, but the look on his face told me he didn't want them to open. He was quittin'. Just because he wants to die, it doesn't mean we're gonna die along with him. Nobody is gonna tell me when I'm gonna die. Now you say it."

She repeated my words, "Nobody is gonna tell me when I'm gonna die."

"Say it again." I made her repeat those words until I felt satisfied.

**Sorry, gonna have to wait to find out who Daisy killed Review for me please **


	6. Hope and a Picture

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead or The Glass Castle**

**Please R&R for me! It would make my day. **

_Flashback _

The next couple of years went by with Daryl and me meeting up after school every day to get some food. But this school year would be different. I was ten and still in the elementary school and Daryl just turned twelve and would now go to the high school, which had longer school days than me. Lori is fifteen and babysits basically every weekend so that just left me.

After everyone realized Lori and Daryl were both gone the other kids in my grade started making fun of me. They didn't like how many freckles I had, how red my hair was or how skinny I still am. They called me skeleton girl and always said I could stay dry in the rain by standing under a telephone wire. I still went out and scavenged like I normally did, just without Daryl. Besides, Daryl didn't have to do it anymore. Merle was back and winning money like crazy. Fifty-dollars a race! That was enough to feed my family for the entire month!

But those weren't the only things that were different. Mom was pregnant. She didn't like the idea of having yet another child, but dealt with it. Mom still didn't have a job and Lori and I had worked out a budget for Dad that he agreed to because we left room for his beer and cigarettes. He got about twenty dollars a week from winning games of billiards at the bar, but just spent it off on some more beer and cigarettes. When Mom was pregnant, Dad usually stayed away because he didn't want to threaten the baby's livelihood by 'accidentally' slipping a punch at mom.

One day in April I came home from school to find mom gone. I waited an hour until Lori came home and after yet another hour we both came to the conclusion that she was having the baby or already had it. Our next door neighbor drove us to the hospital and when we got to the front desk Lori asked, "Did a pregnant woman come in? A Grace Jackson?"

The woman looked up at us with a sad look in her eyes and asked, "Are you her daughters?" we both nodded furiously and she said, "Third floor, room forty-one," solemnly.

We raced through the lobby and ran up the stairs as if it were the last thing we did. I never felt so hyped up in my life, but when we got to room forty-one the first thing I saw was my father kneeling on the ground, sobbing. My mother lied there on the bed with her eyes closed and her hair sticking to her forehead with sweat. My mother was dead. Lori started to sob and she ran over to where Dad was, crying out, "What happened?!"

I stared in horror as tears silently rolled down my face and the first thing I asked was, "Where's the baby? Where's the baby?!"

A doctor passed by the door, hearing mine and my sisters cries and directed me to the nursery and to a small cradle with a squirming and crying baby inside. It seemed she knew that she lost her mother too. Seeing that the baby had no name on the side of the cradle I told the doctor, "Annabelle Grace Jackson. That's her name." Annabelle was my grandmother's name and Grace was my mother's name. Grandma always complained because she didn't have a grandchild named after her and it seemed to fit. The whole entire day I sat silently watching baby Annabelle get fed, changed and bathed. They told Lori and me what had happened to our mother. Mom had suffered a massive brain hemorrhage and the bleed was so large there was nothing that they could do to save her. And I just listened to what the doctor was saying silently, watching Annabelle squirm in her crib. Lori called grandma that night and told her what had happened. I couldn't think of mom right now. My father was having a mental breakdown and I knew what that was going to lead up to. Although I was ten years old, I knew a lot for my age, everybody told me that. When mom was alive she would always say to me, "Daisy, you're so focused it's scary." I didn't know if it was a compliment or an insult. Now that she's dead, I like to think of it as a compliment. Dad was going to get drunk, very drunk. I knew him that well. After realizing this I promised one thing: to protect Annabelle even if I died trying.

XXXXX

After my mother's death and Annabelle's birth I became a mute. Grandmother came to the Tracks and took care of us for a while. She paid for the funeral, our mourning clothes and even bought us food for some time. On the day of the funeral Grandma combed my snarly hair and curled it nicely, commenting on how I looked like an Irish doll if it wasn't for my frizzy hair. Annabelle was in her crib asleep and a neighbor offered to watch her for the service. Not a lot of people were at my mother's funeral. Just some family, a few of Lori's close friends and after they lowered my mother's coffin into the ground I was surprised when I looked up and saw Daryl in a white button down shirt and black dress pants that looked a bit too small.

After that a lot of people came up to me and said they were sorry and all I could do was nod. Daryl was in the back of it all, silently watching me with sad eyes. And when people walked away from me I walked up to Daryl and we both just stared at each other for a while. We haven't talked much lately and everything just hit me like a ton of bricks then. My bottom lip started quivering and my eyes started to water. Daryl took a step closer to me and slowly, yet awkwardly, he wrapped his arms around my shaking body and told me it was going to be alright, although we both knew it wasn't.

_Present _

As I thought of the promise I made Anna the lights in the room shut off. Anna looked at me with wide eyes, "What just happened?"

I shook my head, "I don't know…I wouldn't be surprised if the power went out here, just like it did with everything else."

We went out into the hall with the bags on our backs only to find that the hall lights were still on. Not everything went out.

"Why's the air off?" Carol asked, "And the lights?"

"What happened? Why did everythin' turn off?" Daryl asked as he popped out of his room, swinging a Jack Daniels bottle in his hand.

Jenner walked past and it took the bottle for himself, "Energy is being prioritized," he said, taking a swig.

"Air isn't a priority?" Dale asked.

"It's not up to me. The building is shutting itself down."

"Hey!" Daryl said, chasing after Jenner, "What the hell does that mean?" Jenner ignored him and that kind of pissed me off. I wanted to know what it meant too.

"Answer him god damn it! We want to know what it means!"

We met up again with Rick, Shane, T-Dog and Glen.

"Jenner, what's happening?" Rick asked.

"The system is dropping all of the non-essential uses of power. It's designed to keep the computers running until the last possible second. Everything else will stop at the half hour mark." He pointed to the timer that read thirty minutes. "Right on time." Jenner gave the bottle back to Daryl and he grimly took it. He then turned to Andrea and said, "It was the French."

"What?" she asked.

"They were the last ones to hold out as far as I know. While our people were committing suicide and packing their bags they stayed in the labs until the end. They thought they were close to a solution."

"What happened?" Jacqui asked softly.

"Same thing that's happening here," he replied calmly, in that strange way that he does. "Our power rent…ran out of juice. The world runs on fossil fuel, I mean how stupid is that?"

"Let me tell you-," Shane started angrily, walking up to Jenner.

"Shane," Rick said, "I don't even care." He turned to us, "Everyone, grab your things we're getting out of here."

We already had our things, but just then red flaring siren-like lights flashed around and Vi said, "Thirty minutes until Facility-Wide Decontamination."

As people went to go get their stuff Jenner clicked a few buttons and the doors closed. I started to panic.

"What's goin' on you son of a bitch!" Daryl yelled, about to tackle Jenner, but Shane and T-Dog.

"Jenner, open those doors. Now!" Rick yelled angrily.

"I can't everything is locked down. The emergency exits are sealed."

"Well open the damn things," Dale said.

"That's not something I control, the computers do. I told you, once that front door closes it wouldn't open again. It's better this way."

"What is?" Rick asked, "What happens in twenty-eight minutes?"

"Do you know what this place is?!" Jenner stood up, "We've been protecting the public from very nasty stuff! Weaponized small box that's rays can wipe out half the country! Stuff you don't want getting out ever!" We glared at him as he calmed down and sat down in front of his computer, "In the event of a catastrophic power outage or terrorist attack, for example, HITs are deployed to prevent any organisms from getting out."

"What are HITs, sir?" Annabelle asked. I took her hand and squeezed it.

Jenner looked at Annabelle and I for a second sadly and then said, "Vi, define HITs."

"HITs high impulse thermoperic fuel explosives that consist of two stage ignitions that create a blast significantly greater power than any known explosive except nuclear. Vacuum pressure ignites the air and oxygen between 5000 and 6000 degrees and is useful of the greatest impulse and damaged structures are desired."

"It sets the air on fire…" Jenner said with what sounded like awe.

Carol started to cry and I went up to Jenner, scared out of my mind, but I knew that he could open those doors. The men started to try to open the doors and I went up to Jenner.

"Sir, you've give up hope and I understand why, I don't blame you for doing that. But we haven't. Have you ever heard of the myth Pandora's Box?"

He looked up at me and shook his head, "No, I can't say I have."

"My mother, before she died, always used to tell me stories from this big mythology book and one of my favorite was Pandora's Box. The gods gave Pandora, the first woman in the world, to the Greeks anyway, a box that they told her not to open for her wedding. But out of curiosity and out came death, sickness, despair, sadness and all of the other things that has taken over our world now, but the only good thing that came out of all of that was hope. With us still living sir, hope goes on. If you kill us, we may never find the people with the cure. There may never be a cure known to us." Jenner still didn't look convinced, "Sir, when that little girl was born," I pointed to Annabelle, "I promised that I would die protecting her. I would fight for her. This is not the way I wanted to go down. I wanted to go down fighting. Nobody, not even you, is goin' to tell me when I'm gonna die."

I stepped back to see Jenner's reply and everyone was silent, waiting tentatively.

"Why did you stay when others ran if you didn't have any hope?" Rick asked.

"Not because I wanted to," Jenner stood up, "I made a promise, to her…my wife."

"Test Subject 19 was your wife," Lori said.

"She made me and she said to go on as long as I could. How could I not? It should've been me on that table; it wouldn't have mattered to anyone. She was a loss to the world! Hell, she ran this place, I just worked here. In our field she was an Einstein. Me, I'm just Edwin Jenner. She could've done something about this."

"Your wife," Rick said, "She didn't have a choice. You do. That's all we want. A choice. A chance."

"Let us keep trying as long as we can," Lori cried, holding Carl.

For a moment we just stood there, waiting, until Jenner replied, "The outside doors, I can't open those." And with that and a press of a few buttons, the doors opened.

As everyone ran out Rick and I stayed for a moment. I looked up at him and gave him a quick hug, "Thank you Doctor Jenner, for giving us hope."

And with that I ran out. I took Annabelle by the hand and ran to where Daryl was waiting. He touched my arm for just a moment and said, "Let's get outta here!"

When we got to the doors they wouldn't open. I ran to the windows and I felt something fly out of my bag, but I didn't check to see what it was. That didn't matter now. We banged against the window, but nothing worked. It was pointless.

"Rick," Carol said, "I think I have something that may help."

And what she took out of the bag was completely unexpected: a grenade. "I found it in your pants when I was washing them."

He took it with thanks and we all hid behind the stairs as the window blew open. I helped Carol and Sophia out and then jumped out myself with ease. Daryl was waiting for me and was about to leave, but then stopped. Daryl and I grabbed Annabelle's hands and helped her out. "Thanks," I said quickly and then, still holding onto her hand, ran to the truck. Before we could even open the doors Daryl came from behind me and shielded Annabelle and I. My head rested on his chest and I breathed him in. He smelled like a warm burning fire, pine needles and rain. When the boom sounded we both looked up and smiled at each other, just like we used to when we got a nice deer for dinner when we were kids. And before I could let go of him or turn away he leaned down and gave me a quick kiss on the lips. I didn't pull away from him for a moment and I just looked at him with wide eyes. Daryl gave me a small smirk and then ran to his truck. Dazed, I got into my truck and started it. This is going to be a long journey.

**Hoped you liked it! Please review and could you possibly guess what fell out of Daisy's bag? Bet you can't **


	7. The Convert

**Thanks for all of the nice reviews! I'm going to give you a hint to what she dropped. She didn't drop the ring, but she did drop a picture. Could you guess what the picture was? And perhaps who picked it up?! Haha, anyway, please review and enjoy **

_Flashback_

Four days after my mother's funeral, grandma went out to go get some groceries, Lori was feeding Annabelle from the only bottle that we had gotten from the Thrifty-Shopper nearby and I was sitting on the couch reading _My Friend Flicka. _Dad hasn't been home since the funeral and after Lori put Annabelle in her crib she sat down next to me and said, "You need to look for Dad…and find him."

I put my finger between the pages and looked up at her, "Why me?"

"Because you're his favorite," she said simply, "He would come home if you told him to."

Wearing a winter coat with a bunch of holes in it and fingerless gloves I walked outside into the cold air and walked to all of the nicest bars in town, where my Dad usually goes, but the one I found him at was the Pub, the rattiest bar in town. He was sitting at the bar telling one of his Air Force stories moving his hands around to describe everything.

When the bell hanging on the door rung from me walking in my Dad turned around and looked at me in that way that he always does when his ragamuffin daughter has to summon him home like a school boy. He looked down at his brown cowboy boots with a frown and said, "You must be really ashamed of your old man, huh?"

I didn't reply and instead took him by the arm and stood him up as best as I could. I took the beer out of his hand and put his arm around my neck as I helped him out. I dragged my father down for about a mile and then I started to get really tired and there were still three miles to get home. An old beat up Ford pick-up truck zoomed past me and my father on the old dirt road, but then started to back up until it came right beside my father and me. The window rolled down and there was Merle Dixon, "Need a ride little lady?"

I've only seen Merle once or twice and from what I saw of him he wasn't the best person in the world.

"No thanks, I'm fine," I huffed, trying the best as I could not to sound like I needed the lift.

"Honey, you ain't gettin' him anywhere like that," he said in his smokers' voice. "Besides, I owe you one. Keeping my brother alive and being his little miss while I was gone. I'm just trying to be the polite neighbor."

I knew Merle Dixon wasn't going to take no for an answer so I agreed and Merle helped me load Dad into the bed of his pickup. We propped Dad up against a tool chest. I climbed in next to the driver. On the way home—with dad still dead to the world in the back, Merle asked me about how I kept care of his brother and I told him about Old Farmer Wilson and the uneaten food at the school. He asked me about horses and I told him about my experience racing at my grandma's home. He asked me about school and I told him I was studying to become a surgeon. Merle then interrupted me, "For the daughter of the town drunk, you sure got big plans," he said.

"Stop the truck," I said. "We can make it on our own from here."

"Aw now, I didn't mean nothin' by that," he said, "And you know you ain't gettin' him home on your own."

Still, he stopped. I opened the pickup's tailgate and tried to drag Dad out.

"I know you took offense to what I said," Merle told me. "Thing is, I meant it as a compliment."

"Whatever," I scoffed, "Get on to wherever you were going."

He scowled at me, "bitch." And he drove off.

_Present_

After CDC exploded we abandoned Daryl's 1973 Ford F-250 and Shane's 1987 Jeep Wrangler. Daryl rode on his 1976 Triumph Bonneville Hardtail Fram Conversion. When I was a kid I would go to the library and find the best car magazines I could find, I almost memorized every one.

Shane was about to hop into the back of my truck, but then he looked at me for a moment with this look in his eye that was…what? I couldn't quite describe it, but then he backed away, putting his hands in his pockets and ran off to the RV.

Weirded out and a bit nervous I started the truck and backed away from CDC. When we got out of the city I took a CD out from the glove compartment underneath my seat and plopped it in. ACDC's Highway to Hell started and I began murmuring the words to myself, my lips shaking a bit. Why did Shane look at me like that?

"Why didn't Shane ride with us?" Annabelle asked, "It must be pretty tight in the RV."

I licked my lips nervously and pushed a loose strand of hair behind me ear, "I don't know sweetie."

We came to a gas station and split the two last gas jugs between each other. Lori, Carol and I went into the gas station to pick up some food for the others and since I was the only one with the weapon I took out two walkers. Lori looked down at the dead with a frown and Carol looked at me passively, "Carol, are you alright?" I asked.

She shook her head as if trying to get something out of it, but then nodded, "I'm fine."

Although I didn't quite believe her I nodded and started filling plastic bags with some food to hold us off for a few days. I took a twenty-four pack of Grombomb drinks in lemonade for myself and for whomever else that wanted it. I'm sure Carl and Sophia would like them. I got a few granola bars, water bottles and almond packages. None of the stores refrigerators were working (obviously), so we couldn't have any of the meat or eggs.

We got back in the truck and I put the grocery bags in the center seat. Now nobody else could sit here. When I turned the truck back on Hot Blooded by Foreigner started up. I wanted to turn the volume dial up so high right now, but I kept it at a normal volume. Maybe once we got on the highway I would.

I started to slow down when Carol's 1979 Jeep Cherokee slowed down to a stop. Abandoned cars cluttered around us and I sighed and hopped out of the truck, "I had a feeling this was going to happen…"

"Is there any way through?" I asked Daryl as he got off of his bike.

He shrugged and grabbed his crossbow, "Maybe, if we move some cars around."

As the men started bombarding the cars like dogs, searching for things that may be useful, I noticed Lori rubbing her arms a bit awkwardly. "Lori, are you alright?" I asked.

"I'm fine, but it just seems a bit wrong to take things from the dead, ya know?"

I nodded in understanding, "Well, maybe you can just take things from the cars that don't have the dead in them, if it makes you feel any better. But, if they were anything like me, I think they would want to help us after death came to them. Help the living."

Lori put her arms straight down and nodded, "You're right." And she started going through a car without the dead in it.

Carl, Sophia and Annabelle were about to run off, but not before I stopped them. "Hey, Anna. Can you stay near me and the others? I don't think you want to get lost in this mess. Sophia and Carl, I don't think your mothers want you to get lost either…"

"Yeah, Carl honey, stay with me or your father, alright? I don't want you out of my sight," said Lori, gesturing Carl to come forward.

Carol looked at me for a moment and I got that uncomfortable feeling again. Like I was a punked-out, hiker boot-wearing, free-thinking Bratz doll in a group of Preppy Barbies. "Sophie, come here."

The majority of the stuff I was looking through wasn't anything I was looking for, just mainly clothes, photo albums and rotten food. I picked out some clothes for everyone, toys for the kiddos and a few tools for Dale. I also got some flashlights, fire starters and nicer sleeping bags. As I was going through some more bags I felt a hand on my lower back. Not thinking I turned around quickly and reached for a knife hidden in my boots. But then saw it was Daryl. He put his hands up in surrender and backed up, "Woah, it's just me."

I let out a heavy breath and put the knife back in my boot, "Please don't sneak up on me like that…"

"Sorry," he said, "I wasn't thinkin'. Did you find anythin' good?"

I shrugged, "Nothin' that I _really _want, but some things that the rest of the group may enjoy."

"Well, keep lookin' I guess. I'm gonna go and keep watch with Rick and Dale."

For a few more minutes I kept on searching until I heard Rick hiss out, "Get under the cars!"

As I got under the car I was digging through I had a nice guess as to what was coming our way. Carol and Lori were in the car beside me, Annabelle and Carl were under the car behind me and Sophie was alone under the car in front of me. I pulled my knee up and quietly I grabbed the knife out of my boot, my bow and arrows were in the truck.

I started to get out from under the car after about ten minutes of the walkers. That's when I heard her small cries. As soon as those two fucks started chasing after Sophie down to the woods I rolled out from under the car, jumped over the highway border, slid on my heels down the hill and into the woods. Annabelle was a good girl; she knew that she shouldn't come after me. But someone did come after me: Rick. "Come on, let's go!" I said.

We ran after Sophia and the Walkers chasing after her. Rick said, "We'll get Sophia into a safe area and then take on the Walkers, alright?"

"I'm pickin' up what you're throwin' down, officer." I said.

"Good."

We finally caught up to Sophia and Rick grabbed her. She tried to reach for his gun, "Shoot them!" she cried.

"Sweetie," I said, "We can't do that. Remember? Loud noises draw Walkers."

She looked up at me with her innocent and big eyes and nodded. We got her to a small creek bed and Rick told her to wait there while we drew the Walkers away, "If we don't come back, run back to the highway. Keep the sun on your left shoulder."

Before the Walkers even noticed we were there I threw my knife like a knife thrower would and it landed right into the Walkers brain, the apple. Rick pushed his Walker quickly against a tree and stabbed the Walker right in the forehead perfectly.

I only waited a second for Rick to finish it off and then as impatient as I am I ran for Sophia and I wanted to scream out and throw my knife into the water when I saw that she wasn't there. "Damn it!" I hissed, "I knew we shouldn't have left her!"

XXXXX

When we got back to the highway I left Rick to explain to Carol why Sophia wasn't with us. He gave her dumbass directions to the highway, that's why. I came to T-Dogg and knelt beside him, "What happened?"

Daryl came up behind me, "Were you frickin' loco?"

I ignored him and listened to T-Dogg as he told me that he was cut. "Did you clean it up?" I asked him, "Ya know, with antiseptic or somethin'?"

He shook his head, "No. There was none."

"It's going to get infected. At least clean it out with some water, alright? There's a bunch of water bottles in my truck, take as many as you need. Plus, elevate your arm as much as possible and put pressure on it. Can you do that?" I asked, looking him the eye. T-Dogg nodded with dreary eyes. I stood up and looked at Dale, "Do you have any sewing supplies? All I need is as simple as a needle and some string."

Dale nodded, "I think so. Let me go check."

Shane and Daryl hovered behind me like ghosts. I turned over on my heel and gave them a mocking smile, "Do you two boys need somethin'?"

"I was just wonderin' what exactly Rick told Sophia when giving her directions back to the highway," Shane asked.

"Well, nothin' that a little girl would understand, that's for sure. I had a feeling we shouldn't have left her there…" I mumbled.

Shane put his hands on his hips and sighed, "Unbelievable. Anyway, Rick, Glenn and Daryl and I are going to go out and look for her. Do you want to join us?"

I looked down at T-Dogg, "I don't know…"

T-Dogg shook his head and raised his hand, "Don't worry about me, just go and get Sophia."

"No way are you comin' with us," Daryl argued.

"You didn't win this fight when I went to Atlanta with you. What makes you think you're going to now?" I asked, walking past him, "Now if we're going to leave let's leave."

Shane ran up next to me and yelled behind his back, "Might as well listen to the girl, Daryl. You can't make her stay here."

Daryl ran ahead of us, "Damn, I've never met a more stubborn bitch in my life."

Rick and Shane smiled to each other and before I went down the ditch I turned to Annabelle, "Please be careful. Always have a knife at hand and stay close to the others, alright?"

She nodded and waved to me as I headed off, "Bye, I'll see you later," and she ran off.

Glenn followed next to me as Shane went up with Rick and Daryl, "So how long have you been taking care of your sister? Wait, you are sisters right?"

I smiled and nodded, "Yeah, we're sisters Glenn, I know we look different. And I've been takin' care of her ever since she was a babe."

"So you taught her to use weapons and everything?"

I nodded, "Knives when she was six, bows and arrows when she was ten and I few months before the world went to hell I taught her how to handle a gun."

"Who taught you?"

I frowned, "My father…why are you asking all of this stuff Glenn?"

"I'm sorry, I was just-," his eyes got wide and I looked ahead to see what he was looking at: a Walker.

Before Daryl could even lift up his crossbow I threw my knife as swiftly as one would a baseball and I couldn't help but to smile when I heard it meet the flesh of its target. I ran up and pulled the knife out of its head and kicked it just to make sure that it was dead. When it didn't move I took a cloth out of my back pocket and started to clean the bloody knife.

I turned around, not looking up, concentrating on getting my favored knife clean. When I realized it was silent I looked up and noticed the guys staring at me. I held my hands up, "What? Never seen a girl throw a knife?"

"What exactly did you do before the fever struck?" Rick asked me.

"I was studyin' to be a spinal surgeon." Again with people asking me questions.

"You're some spinal surgeon that's for sure," Shane said, giving me that look that he did earlier. What was with him? How many mood swings does this guy have?

"Yeah, I guess I am… so are we going to look for Sophie or what?" I asked getting back next to Glenn.

Before going on Daryl looked at me and gave me a smirk.

Shane and Glenn decided to go back to the highway to keep the group occupied by giving them random jobs such as moving the cars so Dale could back the RV up once he got it started.

Daryl picked up on the trail again and led Rick and I through the dense forest. I had to admit, Daryl was the better tracker, but I also had to give myself the better hunting award, besides I was the one who taught him. For example, when another Walker came into view my knife was in its head shortly. I quickly got it out and before we went on Rick said, "Wait, let me examine the teeth, if there's flesh in it, we may have to cut the sucker open."

Well, there was flesh in it, no surprise there, but that didn't mean it was Sophia. Daryl was about to cut its stomach open, but I stopped him, "I'm the more experienced hunter, no offense, and besides…my knife is sharper," I added with a smirk and Daryl smirked back. As I stabbed the Walker and ripped it open, Daryl watched me consciously, just like he did on that cool spring night when he witnessed a murder. As Daryl watched me, Rick tried to keep down the little food he had eaten since CDC. When I got to the stomach I took everything out only to see that the damned thing ate a woodchuck for lunch. I wanted to call it quits for the night right then and there, but we kept on looking.

When we came back to the highway Glenn was the first to spot us and he shouted, "Hey, look! They're back!"

Carol looked at us and her eyes started to tear up when she saw that we didn't have Sophia with us, "You didn't find anything?" she cried, as Rick explained the trail went cold.

"You can't leave my daughter out there on her own. To spend the night alone in the woods," she cried.

Daryl stepped up, "Trackin' in the dark wouldn't be no good. We'd just be trippin' over ourselves."

"She's just twelve; she can't be out in the dark on her own. You didn't find anything?"

"I know this is hard, but we're going to find her. Daryl and Daisy know the woods better than anyone; I asked them to lead the search party," Rick tried to reassure her.

Carol looked at me with a panicked look in her eyes, "Is that blood?"

"We killed a Walker on our way," I said.

"There was no sign that it was never near Sophia," Rick said, stepping close to her trying to keep the poor woman calm.

"How do you know that?" Andrea asked.

I took a breath, "We cut it open…just to make sure."

Carol sat down crying and Lori sat down next to her, rubbing her back. I quickly sat on the other side of Carol and put my hand on her arm, "We'll-."

But she cut me off, "How could you just leave her there?" she accused me angrily.

My heart started to pound fast and a huge wave of guilt flooded over me. My hand slowly left her arm and I looked up at Rick for a moment and took the blame for leaving Sophia out there. Rick was about to speak up, saying that it wasn't my decision to leave her there, but I spoke first, "You have every right to be mad at me. I thought it would be better to leave her for a minute while we got rid of the Walkers. If we brought her with us there was a chance that one of them would get to her first before we did. I didn't want to risk that. Right after we got to them we ran back and she-." I couldn't go on.

"Sounds like they didn't have a choice," Shane said, sitting next to me. But that was the sad thing, I did have a choice.

"How is she supposed to find her way back? She's just a child," she cried.

"It was the only choice I could make," I croaked, feeling guiltier and guiltier every second that passed.

"I'm sure nobody doubts that," Shane said.

Carol was unable to look at me after her accusation. I stood up then and looked down at the asphalt, "I'm not going to stop looking for your girl Carol. I just wanted you to know that," and with that, I walked away from the group.

XXXXX

The next morning I sat with T-Dogg in the RV with the sewing supplies Dale found. I cleaned out his wound with some alcohol and started to stitch it up. He was practically unconscious and I made sure Dale knew that he should have a bottle of water every two hours or so.

When I got outside everyone was surrounding Carol's car where Rick rolled out a pack of different knives and other sharp objects. My hands started to shake in awe. It was like Christmas.

"Everyone takes a weapon," Rick said.

"These aren't the kind of weapons we need," Andrea complained, "What about the guns?"

I wanted to smack her upside the head and scream, "We all know you want to shoot yourself, Andrea!"

"Haven't we already been over that?" Shane asked, leaning up against the RV, "Daryl, Rick and Daisy and I are carryin'. We can't have guns popping all around every time a tree rustles."

"It isn't the trees I'm worried about," sneered Andrea.

"Now you see what if somebody shoots at the wrong moment like when a herd is passing. Then its game over for all of us," Shane argued, "So you need to get over it."

"The idea is to take the creek up, about five miles and then turn around and go down the other side. Chances are she'll be by the creek," Daryl said, trying to get over Shane and Andrea's bickering.

"Stay quiet and stay sharp. Always stand a bit of distance between each other, cover more ground."

I was about to leave when I heard Carl say to his father, "Can I go? Annabelle's going."

Annabelle and I turned around and Rick glanced up at me, as if waiting for me to give an answer. I shrugged, "He has all of us with him, right? I don't wanna make the decision for you, but I think he'll be in good hands."

Rick and Lori agreed to let him come with us and when Carl ran up to Annabelle and me, I gave him a high-five. After Andrea complained to Dale about making her leave CDC we started heading out to search for Sophia.

We soon became tired and worn out after a fruitless journey to search for Sophia. Daryl pointed out a campsite and we all had hope that Sophia was there, but it turned out just to be an old home for a man who decided 'opted out', as Jenner would call it.

When we were about to leave we heard a soft ringing in the air, "Church bells?" I asked, furrowing my brows, "Sophia could be ringing them."

But when we followed the noise we came to a small Baptist church with a bunch of tombstones surrounding it.

"It's the wrong one," Shane said, "It doesn't have a steeple." But Rick started running to the church anyway.

When we got inside all there was in there were a few Walkers staring up at the cross. I almost thought of it as poetic to see them all like that, but then they started to stand up and I knew they didn't have one good bone in their lifeless bodies. I took out an arrow and armed my bow quickly. Pulling back the string I soon sent the arrow into one of their eyes. When they started to come after us I pulled another one, but then an arrow skimmed past my shoulders and hit another one. Daryl came up next to me as I got the last one. We retrieved our arrows and Shane insisted that it was the wrong church, "There's no steeple, there's no steeple…" he repeated.

That's when the bells started to ring again. We ran outside again only to find an automated bell toll around on the side of the church. Glenn unhooked the bells in frustration and Carol then announced that she was going to go back inside for a while. Rick, Carl, Lori and Annabelle and I followed her in and I was almost moved to tears when I heard Carol's prayer to our Lord. When she was done I slowly went up to kneel and front of the cross. I put my head down and held my hands and I started to pray as softly as I could, "Lord, I know I haven't in stepped foot inside a church ever since…ever since he killed her. I've tried to pray ever since I was a kid, but I always seem to stop half-way through. I've never said what I really wanted to say, but now I am. I'm going to finish this time. I wanted you to know that I have the worst guilt more than anyone. I'm sorry for what I did before the fever, but you must know that I killed him because he was goin' to kill her. I couldn't let that happen. Please understand and I hope you would forgive me, but I would understand if you didn't. But I do beg of you to keep Annabelle safe from harm's way. Please grant me that one wish…" and with that I stood up and started heading out.

Shane called the group to attention and said, "Daryl and the rest of you will be going back and checking the creek bed. Rick and I are going to stay here and look around some more, just to be thorough."

"Are you sure about splittin' the group up?" asked Daryl.

"We'll catch up to you later," Shane answered.

"Can I stay?" asked Carl, "Sophia's my friend."

Annabelle walked past me and stood by Carl, "Mine too."

I gave them both a small smile and looked up at Shane and Rick, "You call the shots on this one, this was your idea in the first place. But if you agree with Carl, I'm goin' with you with Annabelle."

I heard Daryl give off a sigh in the back but he didn't argue. Rick gave a nod, but Shane gave me that off look again. I began to get a feeling that Shane's behavior was because he remembered me taking the shot at CDC.

Before we left, Rick went in the church to give a prayer. When he was done Shane asked, "You get what you wanted?"

"I guess we'll find out," he said, walking past us.

We got up from our spot from the Church's steps and when we were all heading off into the woods I came up to Rick and asked, "Did you see the sign to the church when we came in?" He nodded, "Well underneath it was the phrase Revelations 16:7. It was my favored Bible passage and it translates to "And I heard the altar respond: 'Yes, Lord God' Almighty, true and just are your judgments." If I heard your prayer correctly, I think it's a sign that we're on the right path."

Rick gave a smile and looked down at me, "You think so?"

I nodded, "I know so."

That's when we heard the breaking of branches. Thinking that it was a Walker, Shane and I lifted our weapons only to find that it was a deer. It walked through the woods and stopped in a clearing. I put my weapon down, but Shane kept his up. Rick ushered him to put it down and pointed to Carl, who was nearing the deer in awe. Annabelle looked up at me and I nodded, she started to go up behind Carl. Smiling, Carl turned his head back to us as the deer stood tall, looking at the curious children. It was a beautiful sight. Shane grinned as Rick and I had or moment as we watched our young children. Suddenly a gunshot echoed through the air and Carl went down, knocking Annabelle down with him. Annabelle let out a short scream and began to hold Carl as blood gushed from his chest.

**Okay, I ended off at the end of the season 2 premiere, obviously. I'm sorry, but I really didn't have that many ideas. But I promise once they get to Hershel's Farm the story will move a lot faster and be a bit more action-packed. Secrets about Daisy will be revealed and her and Daryl's relationship will grow. Since Daryl knows her big secret, I'm going to have Shane pry her open like a nut, and believe me, she'll crack! Anyway, please review. It'll make my day **


	8. A Criminal History

**Hey everyone! A nice and loyal reader (Leyshla Gisel) commented that I shouldn't have made Daisy take Ricks scene. I don't even know why I did that or what the purpose of it was, I just did it. Maybe so there will be some tension between Carol and Daisy? I don't know. But I just wanted to say that I realized my fault and thanks for pointing it out. Don't be afraid to give some constructive criticism! Just to clarify my last chapters AN at the end, I am NOT making Shane a possible love interest (but if you want there to be a love triangle just tell me). He's just an interesting and complex character that I want to get into Daisy's life. There will be tension with the two! Anyway, please review and enjoy **

_Flashback_

The next few years went on without talking to Daryl much, his brother seemed to keep out of jail and get odd jobs. But my family and I on the other hand, seemed to have the worst of luck. My grandmother died shortly after my mother did and some people sold her home in Phoenix for us, but I swear they tried to sell it for the least amount of money. We got three-thousand dollars, but I knew it was worth more. That held us up for about two years when we used it wisely and it seemed that dad never even bothered to notice. Whenever he asked us where we got the money we always told him that Lori earned the money babysitting. In sixth grade I started babysitting myself. Lori and I made out a plan for when we could babysit so one of us could always be home and watch Annabelle.

But grandma's house money eventually ran out and we were just living on mine and Lori's babysitting money. When Lori turned eighteen next summer after she got out of high school, which was only a year away, we'd get to see all of the money in mom's banking account. All the money she would have gotten every month from her mysterious land in Texas. Since the money only went to blood relatives from mom's side it would go to us next. Just a year away and we'd be rich with all that saved up money.

I'd started seventh grade that fall, which meant attending the High School. It was a big school, near the top of a hill looking down on the town, with a steep road leading up. Kids were bused in from way up in the hollows and from other poor areas that were too small to have their own school. Some of the kids looked as poor as me, with home-cut hair and holes in the toes of their shoes. I found it a lot easier to fit in than at the Elementary.

The other girls talked endlessly among themselves about who still had their cherry and how far they would let their boyfriend go. The world seemed divided into girls with boyfriends and girls without them. It was the distinction that mattered most, practically the only one that did matter. But I knew that boys were dangerous. They'd say they loved you, but they were always after something.

Even though I didn't trust boys, I sure did wish one would show some interest in me. Daryl was in ninth grade, but I hadn't talked to him in a long, long time. As far as I know though, he was single.

One day when I was sitting outside with three-year old Annabelle sitting next to me coloring, Daryl, who was also outside caught my eye. He took one look at Annabelle, but then started walking towards me.

"Hey, how are you?" he asked.

I looked up at him and raised a brow. Daryl Dixon asking how I was? I tried to figure out if he was joking or not, "I'm fine, you?"

"I was thinking of going hunting later on tonight. Do you wanna join me?" Daryl asked, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"As much as I would like to…I don't think I can. I have to watch Annabelle while Lori's gone tonight. I don't have that much time huntin' anymore," I replied, "I'm sorry, but maybe I can teach Annabelle how to hunt. And when she's good at it I can bring her out with me."

"Oh, ok," he said, sounding a bit disappointed.

Daryl was about to walk away but I stopped him, "Hey, is Merle winnin' races?"

He nodded, "Yeah."

"Where does he race?"

"A few miles off, near the fairgrounds. I'll bring ya sometime if ya want?" Daryl asked.

"Maybe," I said, "I'd like that."

Daryl gave me one of the smallest smiles and nodded, "Whenever you're not busy I'll pick you up or somethin'."

"Alright," I said in my born and raised Southern twang. Daryl then said goodbye to me and Annabelle and walked away.

_Present Day_

We ran relentlessly through the woods and then we got to this big field. A large man behind Shane kept on saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," over and over again. I didn't listen to him, didn't want to. My bottom lip began to quiver as I watched Rick run ahead of him, Carl unresponsive in his arms.

"How far?" Rick yelled behind him to the hunter.

"Ask for Hershel!" he called, "tell him Otis sent you!"

I knew Annabelle and I could've run ahead of Rick, but I felt as if I couldn't. No way was I going to get in between Rick and that farmhouse ahead of us. In the distance I saw a girl with a brown bob look at us through binoculars and shouted, "DAD!"

Rick finally reached the front steps of the farm house where an old white haired man stood with what seemed to be the rest of his family, explaining, "He was shot, by your man."

"Otis?" a blonde haired lady asked in disbelief.

I came up next to Rick and said, "Please help. Just give the boy a place where I can operate—," I was out of breath and I shook my head, "Just please help him." I begged.

Hershel looked between Rick and I and then nodded quickly, "Of course, come inside."

We rushed into the house and I followed them in to the bed room where Rick carefully set Carl down, Annabelle looked up at me and asked, "Are you goin' to help Carl?" he voice was shaking a bit at the sight of Carl lying unconscious with blood spilling out of him.

I nodded, "I will…I'll do what I can."

As the girl Hershel called Maggie set an IV into Carl's arm Hershel looked up at me with raised brows, "You can help?"

"Yes, before the fever hit I finished studyin' to become a neurosurgeon," I stated.

Hershel nodded and gestured me to come forward. I put pressure on Carl's wound and suddenly I was in the zone. Nobody was going to tell me anything. It seemed that everybody saw that I was concentrated and when I asked for some Quickclot or Celox a lady named Maggie handed them to me without hesitation. Hershel looked cleaned up around the wound and asked, "He's losin' a lot of blood…"

"No doubt about it," I said as I dabbed the wound myself, trying to get it well enough to operate on, "He's goin' to have to get a blood transfusion. Do you have the supplies for that?" I asked. I looked up at him and back to the HIV stuck into Carl's arm. This man by the looks of it was loaded with medical supplies.

Rick, Shane and Otis re-entered the room and Hershel asked, "What's his blood type?"

"A-positive, same as mine."

Hershel nodded, "That's fortunate. Don't wander far, we're gonna need you." He then looked at Otis and asked, "What happened?"

Otis took off his hunting cap and stumbled on his words, "I was trackin' a buck. The bullet went straight through."

I scowled and in the calmest voice I could muster I said, "It might've gone through the buck perfectly, but when it hit Carl…"

"It broke into pieces," Hershel finished for me.

I nodded, "We're goin' to have to operate."

The dire reality of the situation makes Rick come out of his trance and he remembers his Lori, and he sobs into Shane's shoulder because she doesn't even know her son's been shot.

Shane took Rick out of the room and I wanted to thank him. I and Hershel…we couldn't be distracted. I needed to focus. We started to pull out fragments of the bullet with the equipment Hershel supplied and I was thankful for it. I've pulled a bullet out of my leg before when my father was drunk once. I was only seventeen at the time, Annabelle was six and became more popular in her school than I ever would be, she was residing at a random friend's house that night. When my father shot me in the leg he quickly dropped the gun and repeated he was sorry as if he were never drunk. Scared out of my mind I crawled to the door and ran, as fast as I could with my limp leg. I remember collapsing under a tree crying and I told myself to stop being such a baby. I grabbed the pocket knife out of my pocket and got the bullet out with it. I bandaged it properly and slowly walked back home where I found my father lying asleep on the ripped up sofa. As if he didn't even shoot me I subconsciously took his boots off, took the beer out of his hand and the cigarette out of his mouth and started cleaning up. I grabbed that gun off from the floor and traded it with Merle for some money the next day. Daryl wasn't home and Merle promised he wouldn't tell him, although I'm sure he did later on.

But this was a different situation. I wouldn't have been able to save Carl out in the woods with a dinky little hunting knife even if I tried.

As I tried to reach for a deeper part of the broken bullet Carl started whimpering and Hershel told Rick to come in. Carl was losing more and more blood by the second. Patricia, who was Otis's wife acted as a nurse to us and stuck a needle into Rick's arm. Shane came up next to Hershel awkwardly and held Carl down for us. Carl screamed in agony and I clenched my jaw trying not to cry for the young boy who had no pain killers. "It's alright sweetie, we're almost there."

Carl screamed out more, his face becoming pale and Rick yelled out, "You're killing him."

Hershel pulled out a fragment and I did the same. Carl's body then went slack and his eyes closed. Shane's eyes widened and before I could even answer him Shane screamed out, "What did you do? I knew you were a murderer from the very beginning! I knew I should've put that bullet in your head on the first day I saw you!"

For a moment I couldn't move, couldn't breathe. How did he know? There were endless possibilities on how he found out. He was a cop, he could've heard of me. I wanted to cry out, 'I had to kill him! I had to kill him because if I didn't kill him first he would've killed her!' But I only let this moment of shock and terrors rule me for five seconds. After those five seconds were over I shot my head up and glared at Shane, "How dare you say that when the boy has just passed out?!" Shane's round the bend face dropped and I kept my glare, "Now you either stop giving those strong accusations or you get out."

He let go of Carl's shoulders, stood up and went into the corner. Patricia looked at me wearily as she stuck another needle into Carl. After giving a lot of his blood to Carl I told Rick that he should rest. Rick started to say that he needed to go for Lori, but Hershel and Shane told him he couldn't. I kept quiet after what Shane said to me and when him and Rick walked back out into the living room, I was so relieved.

When they left the room it was just me, Hershel and Patricia. Looking at the wound dumbly I said to Hershel, "You know we'll have to perform hard core surgery on him, right Doc? You and I both know those last remaining fragments are going to close to impossible getting out."

"There's internal bleeding…we don't have enough equipment to perform a surgery that big…"

I could tell he was looking for my name and I stated, "Daisy, Daisy Jackson. And the girl waiting out in the living room is Anna, my little sister."

He nodded with a kind smile and said, "Daisy, the nearest place we could get the equipment we need is at the FEMA command compost about five miles away from here at the old high school. Do you want to go tell your friend's what to be done?"

I really didn't want to after what Shane had said to me and Hershel saw the worry etched onto my face, "I'll go tell 'em. You just stay here and take care of the boy."


	9. In Blood

**Thank you all so much for the nice reviews and for following this story. Thanks for even clicking it! **

_Flashback_

A few days after Daryl's and my conversation I started to get really bored. I wanted to join some club or group or organization where I could feel I belonged, where people wouldn't move away if I sat down next to them. I was a good runner, and I thought of going out for the track team, but you had to pay for your uniform, and I knew I couldn't hand that money in. I then remembered mine and Daryl's past few conversations…if only I could win money for riding in competitions. It would be like a dream.

I remember when I was a little girl and we went to visit grandma in the summer. She would always take us to the state fair and I remembered everyone wearing boots, big belts and tall hats. Everyone would crowd around the racing rink as the horse and riders drew up dust from the ground. My grandma would hold my hand and buy me a slushy as I sat underneath the boiling sun, a bit shaded from the black cowgirl hat she bought me. Dad and Mom would go off together and play games or look at the artwork in the Arts and Crafts barn, while Lori took off with friends that she made at grandma's. Like Annabelle, Lori seemed to be the charismatic and popular one while I was the one walking around with grandma. I wish I knew then the short and few times I would spend with her.

But being with my grandmother those few times at the fair and riding her own horses, I became attached and I didn't forget anything she taught me. I would long to be in that green pasture or riding rink and the widest open spaces, to have to wind in my hair and not be afraid of anything. I wanted to be that girl to win the blue ribbon, and from there started the addiction and want.

I knew I couldn't be living on dreams though, I had to be realistic.

Slowly I began to cut my babysitting times and went to the library more often. I would pull out encyclopedias on biology, chemistry, calculus, anatomy, physiology, microbiology and some physics. Ever since my mother's death I have been interested in the nervous system and the brain, the two most delicate and intricate parts of our body, what makes us function.

And when I studied more and more about the two subjects I became more interested in the spinal area where all of the important things are that can make us have mental illnesses. The majority of the time the brain had nothing to do with it. It was all the small parts that people usually overlooked. And when I became an intern at the nearby hospital I felt as if I knew what was really going on in the world. I would see nurses run injured people on gurneys to the emergency room and I knew that they didn't care who this person was. They just wanted to heal him or her. I wanted to do that. I wanted to fix people.

_Present Day _

I drowned out Rick, Hershel, Shane and Otis talking in the background and just focused on the little fragments in Carl and the procedure that Hershel and I would have to make.

Finally, Rick, Hershel and Patricia came back in and giving them all a questioning look Hershel explained, "Shane and Otis went to the school and my daughter, Maggie, went to go get the boy's mother."

I nodded and sucked in the relieved sigh I was about to give out at Shane being gone, not wanting to spend one more second in the same room as him. "That's good…do you have any bandages?"

Patricia nodded, "Of course." She pulled out a drawer in a big bureau and handed them to me, "Here ya go."

As I carefully wrapped the gauze around the wound I couldn't help but to think about Daryl…and the others.

Patricia, Rick and Hershel went out of the room while Annabelle and I staid just to make sure Carl was all good. Annabelle, who was at the window said, "Lori is back."

I finished wrapping the wound and stood up. I pulled Annabelle out of the room with me and said, "Lori should have sometime alone with Carl."

When Lori came in she went right past us while we waited in the living room. I could hear her breaking down at her son passed out on the bed with a bloody gauze covered wound. I wondered how it felt to see someone you love dearly like that. I know what it's like to lose someone, obviously, but what about someone wounded or sick. I never fully experienced how it felt to know someone you love that much in pain.

Hershel was going to go back in the room and I followed cautiously. When I came in I said to all of them, "When I was bandagin' him…I'm sorry, but I think he needs another transfusion. Can we do that now?"

Rick nodded, "Of course, I'm ready."

I shook my head, "Not from you. You're tired enough. But, if you don't mind, I was thinkin' that _I _could give some of my blood."

"What's your blood-type?" Lori asked.

"O-negative, universal donor," I said.

Lori nodded, "Thank you, Daisy. You can."

Patricia cleaned the equipment for another transfusion and came in. I pulled the plastic strap around my upper arm so my veins became visible and inserted the needle myself underneath the elbow crease. The needle and tube was attached to an IV bag which then went into Carl.

As I sat there staring dumbly around myself I actually noticed what the room looked like and took it all in. There was a painting that was covered with a sheet over a threadbare Victorian sofa on the right. Past the sofa, close to the window, a desk was carved mahogany, another antique that had probably been handed down along with their house, from generation to generation. And books, old leather-bound books.

I waited for an hour and a half to pass and then it was over. I took it all off carefully and my arm was a bit sore and bruised around the area of a strap. I've had worse though, so I'm not complaining.

When I came back out into the living room Hershel, Lori and Rick were all talking. Lori said with worried eyes, "So I understand that when Shane gets back with this other man-."

"Otis," Hershel said.

"Otis, right, the idiot who shot my son," Lori said almost as if she were out of breath in her anger.

"Ma'am, it was an accident," Hershel reassured.

"For now he's the idiot who shot my son."

"Lori," Rick said, taking her hand, "They're doing everything they can to make it right."

"When they get back, you can perform this surgery."

"I'll certainly do my best…" Hershel said.

"Okay, you've done this procedure before?"

"Yes, in a sense."

"In a sense?" she asked with a confused and worried glare.

"Honey, we don't have the luxury of shopping for a surgeon," Rick said.

I stepped closer to the small group at the table and spoke up, "I can perform the surgery."

They turned around to look at me and Lori furrowed her brows, "You can?"

Rick nodded, "You said you were a neurosurgeon correct?"

I nodded, "Yes."

"You've performed this operation before?"

"Yeah, not on a child, but yes, I've performed this operation."

Lori nodded and Rick spoke up saying, "That's good enough, Lori…and thank you, Daisy," he nodded to Hershel, "and Hershel for helping Carl."

XXXXX

As it got dark out I was starting to become impatient. Where the hell were they? I already replaced the bandages on Carl and Hershel took his blood pressure multiple times. Each time it kept dropping. Soon enough we were going to have to decide whether to do the surgery without anesthetic, which could kill him. I was pretty confident in myself, but performing it on a kid Carl's size was a whole different story.

Rick and Lori got into a fight when Rick said he was going to go after Shane and Otis and Lori basically said 'No way Jose' to the mere idea of it.

What it came down to was Carl dying without the anesthetic or Carl dying without the surgery. I don't want either.

**Sorry not that much happened in this chapter, but everything will get crazy again when Shane and Daryl come back to the farm. Promise. Please review, it would make my day : )**


	10. So Tired

**Thank you for all of your nice reviews! I'm working Daisy in with the show as best as I can in the outline and she'll have a lot going on for her when they get to the prison and Woodbury. Well anyway, please read and review. **

_Flashback_

At times I felt like I was failing Annabelle, like I wasn't keeping my promise that I'd protect her—the promise I'd made to her when I held her on the way home from the hospital after she'd been born. I couldn't get her what she needed most—hot baths, a warm bed, steaming bowls of Cream of Wheat before school in the morning—but I tried to do little things. When she turned five that year, I told Lori that she needed a special birthday celebration. We knew Dad wouldn't get presents, so we saved for months, went to the Dollar General Store, and bought her a toy set of kitchen appliances that were pretty realistic: The agitator in the washing machine twisted around, and the refrigerator had metal shelves inside. We figured when she was playing she could at least pretend to have clean clothes and regular meals.

"Tell me again about Arizona," Annabelle said after she opened the presents. Although she had never been there, she knew about us living for some time with grandma when I and Lori were younger. She always loved hearing our stories about life in the Arizona desert, so we told them to her again, about how the sun shown all the time and it was so warm that we ran around barefoot even in the dead of winter, about how we ate lettuce in the farm fields and picked carloads of green grapes and slept on blankets under the stars. We told her about Grandma's house and how she combed our hair every morning and gave us nice breakfasts. "That's where I'm going to live when I grow up," Anna said.

After Anna went to bed Lori sent me down to the bar to go and retrieve Dad and when I got there I told him that it was Annabelle's birthday he simply said, "It's her birthday? I forgot. Well it's hardly worth rememberin' the date she killed your mother." And that was that.

Although she longed for Arizona, the magical place of light and warmth, she seemed happier than the rest of the kids on the Tracks. She was a storybook-beautiful girl, with long blond hair and startling blue eyes. She spent so much time with the families of her that she often didn't seem like a member of our family. A lot of her friends were Pentecostals whose parents held that Dad was disgracefully irresponsible and took it upon themselves to save Annabelle's soul. They took her in like a surrogate daughter and brought her with them to revival meetings.

Under their influence, Annabelle developed a powerful religious streak. She got baptized more than once and was all the time coming home proclaiming that she'd been born again. Once she insisted that the devil had taken the form of a hoop snake with its tail in it mouth, and had rolled after her down the mountain, hissing that it would claim her soul. I told Lori we need to keep Annabelle away from those nutty Pentecostals, but she said we all came to religion in our individual ways and we each needed to respect the religious practices of others, seeing it was up to every human being to find his or her own way to heaven.

XXXXX

That summer Lori, because of her good grades and art portfolio, had been accepted into a government-sponsored summer camp for students with special aptitudes. That left me, at fifteen, the head of the household.

Before Lori left, she gave me two hundred dollars. That was plenty, she said, to buy food for Annabelle and Dad and me for two months and pay the water and electricity bills. I did the math. It came out to twenty-five dollars a week, or a little over three-fifty a day. I worked up a budget and calculated that we could indeed squeak by if I made extra money babysitting and with the shifts at the hospital.

For the first week, everything went according to plan. I bought food and made meals for Annabelle and me. I spent hours straightening up and trying to organize the huge stacks of junk.

Dad usually stayed out at night until we were in bed, and he would still be asleep when we got up and left in the morning. But one afternoon about a week after Lori had gone; he caught me alone in the house.

"Hon, I need some money," he said.

"For what?"

"Beer and cigarettes."

"I've got sort of a tight budget, Dad."

"I don't need much. Just five dollars."

That was two days' worth of food. A half gallon of milk, a loaf of bread, a dozen eggs, two cans of jack mackerel, a small bag of apples, and some popcorn. And Dad wasn't even doing me the honor of pretending he needed the money for something useful. He also didn't argue or wheedle or cajole or ratchet the charm way up. He simply waited for me to fork over the cash, as if he knew I didn't have it in me to say no. And I didn't. I took out the green plastic change purse and pulled out a crumpled five and passed it over slowly.

"You're a doll," Dad said and gave me a kiss.

I pulled my head back. Giving him the money pissed me off. I was mad at myself but even madder at Dad. He knew I had a soft spot for him the way no one else in the family did, and he was taking advantage of it. I felt used. The girls at school always talked about how this or that guy was a user and how such and such a girl got used, and now I understood, from deep inside, the meaning of that word.

When Dad asked me for another five bucks a few days later, I gave it to him. It made me feel sick thinking I was now ten dollars off budget. In a few more days, he asked for twenty.

"Twenty dollars?" I couldn't believe Dad was pushing me this far. "Why twenty?"

"Goddammit, since when do I have to explain myself to my children?" Dad asked. In the next breath, he told me that he had borrowed a friend's car and needed to buy gas so he could drive to Gary's for a business meeting. "I need money to make money. I'll pay you back." He looked at me, defying me to disbelieve him.

"I've got bills pilin' up," I said. I heard my voice growing shrill, but I couldn't control it. "I've got a kid to feed."

"Don't you worry about food and bills," Dad said. "That's for me to worry about. Okay?"

I put my hand in my pocket. I didn't know if I was reaching for my money or trying to protect it.

"Have I ever let you down?" Dad asked.

I'd heard that question at least two hundred times, and I'd always answered it the way I knew he wanted me to, because I thought it was my faith in Dad that had kept him going all those years. I was about to tell him the truth for the first time, about to let him know that he'd let us all down plenty, but then I stopped. I couldn't do it. Dad, meanwhile, was saying he was not asking me for the money; he was telling me to give it to him. He needed it. Did I think he was a liar when he said he'd give it back to me?

I gave him the twenty dollars.

XXXXX

That Saturday, Dad told me that to pay me back; he had to earn the money first. He wanted me to accompany him on a business trip. He said I needed to wear something nice. He went through my dresses hanging from the pipe in the bedroom and picked out one with blue flowers that buttoned up the front. He had borrowed a car, an old pea-green Plymouth with a broken passenger-side window, and we drove through the mountains to a nearby town, stopping at a roadside bar.

The place was dark and as hazy as a battlefield from the cigarette smoke. Gaunt men with creased cheeks and women with dark red lipstick sat along the bar. A couple of guys wearing steel-toed boots played pool.

Dad and I took seats at the bar. Dad ordered Buds for himself and me, even though I told him I wanted a Sprite. After a while, he got up to play pool and no sooner had he left his stool than a man came over and sat on it. He had dark brown hair and dark eyes and coal grime under his fingernails. He kind of looked like Tim McGraw. He poured salt in his beer, which Dad said some guys did because they liked to make extra foam.

"Name's Philip," he said. "That your man there?" He gestured toward Dad.

"I'm his daughter," I said.

He took a lick of foam and started asking me about myself, leaning in close as he talked. "How old are you, girl?"

"How old do you think?" I asked.

"About fifteen."

I smiled, putting my hand over my teeth.

"Know how to dance?" he asked. I shook my head. "Sure you do," he said and pulled me off the stool. I looked over at Dad, who grinned and waved.

On the jukebox, Kitty Wells was singing about married men and honky-tonk angels. Philip held me close, with his hand on the small of my back. We danced to a second song, and when we sat down again on the stools facing the pool table, our backs against the bar, he slid his arm behind me. That arm made me tense but not entirely unhappy. No one had flirted with me since Daryl Dixon, but that was years back, we were just friends now…

Still, I knew what Philip was after. I was going to tell him I wasn't that sort of girl, but then I thought he would say I was getting ahead of myself. After all, the only thing he'd done was dance with me slow and put his arm around me. I caught Dad's eye. I expected him to come barreling across the room and whack Philip with a pool cue for getting fresh with his daughter. Instead, he hollered to Philip, "Do something worthwhile with those damned hands of yours. Get over here and play me a game of pool."

They ordered whiskeys and chalked their cues. Dad held back at first and lost some money to Philip, then started upping the stakes and beating him. After every game, Philip wanted to dance with me again. It went on that way for a couple of hours, with Philip getting sloppy drunk, losing to Dad, and groping with me when we danced or sat at the bar between games. All Dad said to me was "Keep your legs crossed, honey, and keep 'em crossed tight."

After Dad had taken him for eighty-bucks, Philip started muttering angrily to himself. He snapped down the cue chalk, sending up a puff of blue powder, and missed a final shot. He flung his cue on the table and announced he'd had enough, and then sat down next to me. His eyes were bleary. He kept saying he couldn't believe that old fart had beaten him out of eighty bucks, as if he couldn't decide whether he was pissed off or impressed.

Then he told me there was an apartment over the bar. He had a Roy Acuff record that wasn't on the jukebox and he wanted us to go upstairs and listen to it. If all he wanted to do was dance some more and maybe kiss a little, I could handle that. But I had the feeling he thought he was entitled to something in return for losing so much money.

"I'm not sure," I said.

"Aw, come on," he said and shouted at Dad, "I'm going to take your girl upstairs."

"Sure," Dad said. "Just don't do anything I wouldn't do." He pointed his pool cue at me. "Holler if you need me," he said and winked at me as if to say he knew I could take care of myself, that this was just part of my job.

So, with Dad's blessing, I went upstairs. Inside the apartment, we pushed through a curtain made from strands of beer-can pull tabs linked together. Two men sat on a couch watching wrestling on television. When they saw me, they grinned wolfishly at Philip, who put on the Roy Acuff record without turning down the television. He pressed me to him and started dancing again, but I knew this was not going in a direction I wanted, and I resisted him. His hands dropped down. He squeezed my bottom, pushed me onto the bed and began kissing me, "All right!" one friend said and the other yelled, "Get it on!"

"I'm not that kind of girl," I said, but he ignored me. When I tried rolling away, he pinned back my arms. Dad had said to holler if I needed him, but I didn't want to scream. I was so angry at Dad that I couldn't bear the idea of him rescuing me. Philip, meanwhile, was saying something about me being too bony to screw.

"Yeah, most guys don't like me," I said. "Besides being skinny, I got these scars."

"Oh, sure," he said. But he paused.

I rolled off the bed, quickly unbuttoned my dress at the waist, and pulled it open to show him the scar on my right side. For all he knew, my entire torso was one giant mass of scar tissue. Philip looked uncertainly at his friends. It was like seeing a gap in a fence.

"I think I hear Dad calling," I said, then made for the door.

_Present Day_

Where the hell are they? Hershel watched Carl as I patched T-Dog up with the new supplies I was capable of getting here. Now we all wait. I rock the chair that I'm sitting on in the corner back on its two legs, absently rolling the hem of my ACDC concert t-shirt that I snagged from a store after the fever broke out between my forefinger and thumb.

Annabelle is sleeping on the couch in the room next to us and I can barely keep my eyes open. Damn. I ask Maggie where the bathroom is and she leads me to the first door on the right of a long hallway. I wash my face off and slap myself once or twice to get myself back up. Looking at my watch I go back to the room and decide that I should switch up his bandages again. Hershel beat me to it though. He informs Rick and Lori that we may have to attempt the surgery without the equipment. I start pinching myself after hearing that. I need to wake the hell up if I'm going to be performing surgery.

I went back to my seat and tried to close my eyes for just a little while, but just when I was on the brink of drifting off I heard Carl cough and I shot up. Rick, Lori, Hershel and I hovered over him as he talked excitedly about the deer we saw. All of a sudden he went still and I was afraid of the worst, but then he went into a seizure. My knees grew weak at the sight of the poor kid and I got the transfusion kit again and waited. His brain wasn't getting enough blood. Rick objected and said he would do it, but I shook my head, "Look in the mirror Rick. Just rest, okay? I'll take care of it." I easily attached the tube to my arm and Carl's arm. This was my third time doing it tonight. With a total of six transfusions Carl didn't seem to get enough blood from Rick or me.

When it was all over with I tried to get some more shut eye and I got about half an hour in which was good enough for me at this point. The latest transfusion wasn't enough and I started to help Hershel sterilize his equipment. Rick gave hope to Lori about performing the surgery without anesthetic and I felt pretty confident in myself about the situation, but Carl had to be strong and take the pain although I knew it would be hard for him. I said a little prayer and drank the coffee Maggie handed over to me gratefully. Lori made her decision on performing the surgery now rather than later when it would possibly be too late. We got Carl onto a surgery table and I stood next to Carl with the blue latex gloves that I haven't worn in a while. I was about to perform the procedure with the tweezers and clamps in hand when the pick-up pulled through the driveway, the headlights shining through the windows. I put down the supplies and Hershel told Patricia to stay with Carl.

As we ran outside I could already see that Otis wasn't with Shane. I looked at Shane and he looked at me all stunned and quiet as I ask, "Where's Otis?"

Staring right into my eyes he stutters out, "We were swarmed…he didn't make it."

I nod and take it as an answer. He hands the supplies bag over to me and I run back inside.

XXXXX

I take out the last piece of the bullet out with a smile on my face and Hershel puts his hand on my shoulder, "You did great." I looked up at him and he has a small smile on his face too. I've never met my grandfather. He passed away before I ever got the chance, but now I think he would look and act like Hershel.

I smile back at him and nod, "We did…but we still need to stop the blood."

We cleaned his wound and patched it up just as before and I can see that with the bullet pieces out that the flesh is now letting it heal itself. Hershel and I then put him back into the bed and he's now seems fine. Of course I would most likely have to replace the bandages on him about ten times, but that's fine.

Lazily and without thought I rubbed my right eye and Patricia led me to a room upstairs. There were clean pajamas laid out upon the bed with small flowers covering them and she said, "They were Annette's." I look up to her and she explains, "Hershel's second wives."

I nod and give her a small smile, "Thank you…and I'm sorry about Otis. He was trying to make it right."

A tear slips down her cheek and she nods and walks away.

**Please, please, please review! It would make my day : ) **


	11. Nosy Bastards

_Flashback _

The next evening Dad disappeared. After a couple of days, he wanted me to go out with him again to some bar, but I said no. Dad got ticked off and said that if I wasn't going to team up with him, the least I could do was stake him some pool-shooting money. I found myself forking over a twenty, and then another in a few days.

Lori had told me to expect a check in early July for the lease on Mom's old Texas land. She also warned me that Dad would try to get his hands on it. Dad actually waited at the foot of the hill for the mailman and took it from him on the day it arrived, but when the mailman told me what had happened, I ran down passed the trailers and caught Dad before he got into town. I told him Lori had wanted me to hide the check until she returned. "Let's hide it together," Dad said and suggested we stash it in the 1933 _World Book Encyclopedia _Mom got free from the library years back.

The next day when I went to re-hide the check, it was gone. Dad swore he had no idea what happened to it. I knew he was lying, but when I accused him of it…well needless to say I came out of the house with a few bruises here and there. For the first time, I had a clear idea of what Lori was up against. Being a strong woman was harder than I had thought. Lori still had more than a month at the camp; we were about to run out of grocery money; and the money I got at the hospital wasn't making up the difference.

I had seen a help-wanted sign in the window of a boutique on McDowell Street called Clique. I put on a lot of makeup, my best dress—it was purple, with tiny white dots and a sash that tied in the back—and a pair of Mom's old high heels, since I now could fit in them. Then I walked around town to apply for the job.

The smell of brick-oven pizza filled the air, and tipsy college students walked past, singing Black Sabbath songs off-key. There was a head shop called Wonderland, a punk-rock beauty salon called Pink Pony, and a place called Bulldog Central, which sold University of Georgia sweatpants and shot glasses. On the very end was the boutique.

The mannequins in the Clique storefront wore luxurious cashmere coats, silk dresses, and diaphanous scarves draped over their bodies. Their hollow black eyes stared at me. Bells dinged when I pushed through the front door.

A large table stuffed with skinny jeans, skinny chinos, skinny cargo pants and even skinner skinny leggings took up most of the real estate in the front of the store. Boots, flats, heels and espadrilles were lined up on the windowsill like soldiers readying for battle.

Mr. Becker, the man who owned the shop, was leaning on the counter with his fingers interlocked. He had a stomach so big that his thin black belt reminded me of the equator circling the globe. He looked like the only thing that didn't fit.

I was afraid that Mr. Becker wouldn't give me the job if he knew I was only fifteen, so I told him I was seventeen. He hired me on the spot for forty dollars a week, in cash. I was thrilled. It was my first real job. Donating blood monthly, cleaning up at the hospital, tutoring, doing other kids' homework, mowing lawns and redeeming bottles and selling scrap metal didn't count. Forty dollars a week was serious money.

XXXXX

I liked the work. People buying from the Clique were always happy, and even though I lived in a poor town, the Clique had plenty of customers: husbands buying something for their wives, guys getting something special for their girlfriends or just women shopping for them. Of course there was the occasional girl from my school who looked at me strangely as if she couldn't believe I worked here or didn't know how to act around the person who worked where she shopped frequently.

During the slow spells, Mr. Becker and I watched the Watergate hearings on a little TV. Mr. Becker was captivated by John Dean's wife, Maureen, who sat behind her husband when he was testifying and wore elegant clothes and pulled her blond hair back in a tight bun. "Hot damn, that's one classy broad," Mr. Becker would say. Sometimes, after watching Maureen Dean, Mr. Becker got so randy that he came behind me while I was cleaning the display case and rubbed up against my backside. I'd pull his hands off and walk away without saying a word, and that horny dog would return to the television as if nothing had happened.

When Mr. Becker went across the street to the Diner for lunch, he always took the key to the display case that held the rings. If customers came in wanting to look at the rings, I had to run across the street to get him. Once he forgot to take the key, and when he returned, he made a big point of counting the rings in front of me. It was his way of letting me know he didn't trust me in the slightest. One day after Mr. Becker had come back from lunch and ostentatiously checked the display cases, I was so furious that I looked around to see if there was anything in the entire darn store worth stealing. Necklaces, bracelets, earrings, shoes and a few pretty dresses here or there and some stupid old banjos—none of them did anything for me.

One day the woman who worked at the store Mr. Becker owned in Atlanta stopped by. Mr. Becker wanted her to give me some beauty tips. While she was showing me her different makeup applicators, the woman, who had stiff platinum hair and eyelashes tarred in mascara, told me I must be earning a truckload in commissions. When I asked what she meant, she said that in addition to her forty-dollar-a-week salary, she made 10 percent on every sale. Her commissions were sometimes double her salary. "Hell, welfare'll get you more than forty bucks a week," she said. "If you're not getting commissions, Becker's stiffing you."

When I asked Mr. Becker about commissions, he said they were for salespeople and I was just an assistant. The next day, when Mr. Becker went off to the Diner, I opened the display case and took out a pretty bracelet with a blue band and diamonds around it. I then slipped it into my handbag. This felt so foreign, so wrong. Mom used to steal from convenience stores all the time-swiping a candy bar here, slipping a pack of gum into mine or Lori's pocket there, once even walking out with several two-liter bottles of Coke stuffed up her shirt like two freaky boobs. I had lived in fear that the cops would haul us off to jail-or, worse, take Mom away from me.

I rearranged the remaining bracelets to cover the gap. I had made plenty of sales on my own when Mr. Becker was busy. Since he hadn't paid me any commissions, I was only taking what I was owed.

When Mr. Becker came back from lunch, he studied the diamond ring display like he always did, but didn't even glance at the bracelets. Walking home that evening with the watch hidden in my purse, I felt light and giddy. After dinner, I climbed into my bunk bed, where no one could see me, and tried on the bracelet with each of the bands, gesturing the way I figured rich people did.

Wearing the bracelet to work was out of the question, of course. I also realized that I could run into Mr. Becker in town at any time, so I decided that until school started, I'd put the watch on only at home. Then I began to wonder how I'd explain the bracelet to Annabelle, Lori and Dad. I also worried that Mr. Becker might see something thief-like in my expression. Sooner or later, he'd discover the missing bracelet and would question me, and I'd have to lie convincingly, which I'm good at, but really wouldn't want to do. If I wasn't convincing, I'd be sent off to a reform school or maybe even jail like Merle Dixon, and Mr. Becker would have the satisfaction of knowing he'd been right all along not to trust me.

I wasn't about to give him that satisfaction. The next morning I took the bracelet out of the wooden box where I kept the ring Daryl gave me a long time and put it in my purse. I then looked down again before closing the box at the pretty dark turquoise ring longingly. Remembering the times when I was young and still had faith in my parents. I shook my head, giving into my temptations as I took the ring out and placed it carefully on my finger.

When I got to the store Mr. Becker looked at my ring curiously and then looking at the ring box he shook his head and then walked out the store for his lunch, knowing that it was never merchandise here. I sighed in relief and when he was finally gone; I opened the display case, slipped the bracelet inside, and rearranged the other watches around it. I moved fast. The week before, I had stolen the bracelet without breaking a sweat. But now I was terrified that someone would catch me putting it back.

_Present Day_

When I woke up the next morning to the sound of Daryl's motorcycle driving up to the farm I sighed in relief. Both him and Anna are safe and that's all I need right now.

I got out of my bed and dug through my bag and got dressed. As I started to walk downstairs I heard loud murmurings and I stopped dead in my tracks when I heard my name. "Daisy couldn't have done anything too wrong, Shane…I mean look at what she did for Carl! She saved him."

"Yeah, but without me he would've died and you know it," I heard Shane hiss.

I could hear Rick shuffle his feet and say, "You're being ridiculous. Besides the picture you have no proof that she murdered someone."

My blood went cold and I didn't care if anyone heard me as I ran upstairs to the nearest bathroom and let my innards spill out of me. Loud thuds came from the staircase as I let the bile drip out of me. Wiping my mouth I shut and locked the bathroom door and leaned against it breathing heavily as I heard Rick knock and ask, "Daisy…are you alright?"

I nodded, but then knowing he couldn't see me I gasped, "I'm fine…my stomach just turned for a moment, that's all," there was silence and then I added, "Is Carl and the others alright?"

"Yeah, we're fine," he said.

Another knock came and I heard Shane's voice ask, "Daisy, can we come in? Rick and I have to ask you somethin'."

I flushed the toilet, unlocked the door and slid across the tiles bathroom to the furthest wall. Shane came in first and Rick came in after him, a bit unsure of himself from what I can see. Looking at the toilet and then back at them I gave them a smile, cocked my head to the side and asked, "Can I help you?"

He flicked out a folded piece of paper and said, "Carol gave me that after we left CDC…said it fell out of your bag when we were leavin'."

I took the paper from Shane seeing that it was heavy material…a picture. Unfolding it I saw what picture it was…it was of me…my mug shot. Shit. I started to tear it into tiny pieces and Rick and Shane looked at me with wide eyes, "Well thanks for returnin' it, but it wasn't that great of a picture of me anyways. It's a shame that Carol didn't have the right mind to return it to me." I tossed the tiny pieces into the toilet as Rick and Shane stared at me.

I pushed down the lever and flushed it while Shane murmured, "You're a murderer…" Rick shot Shane a look.

Thinking of what happened to Otis last night and an old Native American saying I shot back, "Shane, when you point your finger at me in scorn, you must realize that there are three others pointin' back at you."

Shane clenched his jaw and went back outside angrily while Rick stared down at me. I got up off the ground and said, "Do you think I'm a murderer, Rick?" He didn't say anything so I answered for him, "Someday, I'll tell you what happened to me, but not today. Sure, I've made a few mistakes in the past, but who hasn't? I've carried that photo around to remind me of what I did and the past is the past. You just have to trust me on that, Rick. But I would understand if you don't. I know Shane doesn't. And if you tell me to leave, I'll leave."

Rick shook his head, "I don't think I could do that after what you did for Carl last night, but tell me…did you murder someone?"

I looked him straight in the eyes and said, "In honest truth…I have, but it was out of self defense… the person I killed was the person who killed my sister, Lori. Remember when I told you about her?"

Rick nodded, "You told me when we were goin' back to camp…"

"Yeah," I said, "I did…"

"Does Annabelle know?" he asked, looking at me with sad eyes and furrowed brows.

Shaking my head I said, "Not the full story."

"Don't worry about Shane," Rick said, "I'll take care of him. I think he's just been shaken up a bit since last night."

I nodded, "Right, yeah, I would be too."

He walked out of the bathroom and I followed. When we got outside I saw everyone standing around the house.

"How is he?" Dale asked.

"He's fine," Lori said with a smile, "Thanks to Daisy, Hershel and his people-."

"And Shane," Rick was quick to add, "He wouldn't have made it if it wasn't for him."

Dale and Rick embraced and so did Lori and Carol. I looked at Carol with suspicion and a bit of ridicule added in. She didn't like me. "How'd it happen?" Dale asked, always the one to question.

"Hunting accident," Rick said, "A stupid hunting accident."

XXXXX

When we were all done catching up with each other I walked over to Daryl who was leaning against his motorcycle. "Daryl, I have to talk to you," I started, "I don't think some of your people like me very much because they…figured it out."

Daryl looked at me with a raised brow, "Figured what out?"

"I was questioned early this mornin' by Rick and Shane. When we were gettin' out of CDC Carol picked up my mug shot and gave it to Shane…"

There was a pause before Daryl asked, "Did you tell 'em everythin'?"

I shook my head, "Not about you or who I killed or how it even happened I just told Rick what I did was out of self defense, but Shane walked out before I could explain that. I think Rick is alright, but its Shane and Carol that I'm worried about."

"You should've just lied."

"Seriously Daryl? That's the last thing I want to do…anyway just thought I'd tell you," I looked away from him and at the picturesque fields instead. When I saw that they were preparing for the memorial for Otis I started heading towards the tree, but turned back to Daryl, knowing what was in my pocket. I took the smooth ring out of my pocket and held my hand out so he could see it and take back something that was so beautiful and shouldn't be mine.

He looked down at in wonder and picked it up out of my hand, "You still have this?" Daryl asked as he turned the ring around in his fingers, inspecting it.

I nodded, "Yeah, before the house got destroyed I put everythin' that I and Anna ever loved into bags and…that ring was somethin' that I held on to."

"Why are you givin' it back?" he asked, looking up at me.

I put my hands in the back pockets of my jeans and said, "It's yours. It never should've been mine. And, well, in the world we leave, I think you should have somethin' of your mothers."

He stepped closer to me and held it out, "I want you to have it, Daisy. That's why I gave it to you in the first place. I lo-."

I cut him off by stepping closer to him and kissing him good and hard. I have always been afraid of those three words and I couldn't have Daryl waste them on me. I didn't deserve it and I sure as hell didn't deserve that ring either. Pulling away and out of breath I murmured in his ear, "Just keep it for now, okay?"

Turning away from him I didn't want to see the expression on his face whether it was hope or sadness I just couldn't face it now as I walked to the memorial for Otis.

XXXXX

After the service for Otis most of us hovered around the front of my truck as we talked about our plans on finding Sophia. "How long has she been lost?" Hershel asked.

"This will be day three," Rick replied.

The brown haired girl, Maggie, laid down the map she was carrying on the hood of my truck, "County survey map shows terrain and elevation."

"This is great," Rick said, "We can finally get this thing organized. We'll grid the whole area and search this thing in teams."

Hershel looked at Shane and said, "Not you. You just broke your ankle. Push it know and you'll be held up for a month. It'll be no good to anybody."

Daryl pulled his crossbow up over his shoulder and said, "I'll go down over to the creek and work myself up from there."

"I could still be useful," Shane protested, "Drive down the interstate and see if she came back. We can't have our people out there with just knives. We need a gun trainer to teach 'em."

"I don't want you carryin' guns on my property," Hershel said, "We've made it this far without turning into an army camp."

Shane took off his cap and said, "With all due respect, if a group of those things came wanderin' in here…"

Rick cut him off, "We are your guests. This s you're property and your rules. We _will _respect that," Rick emphasized 'will' and looked at Shane.

Rick got out his gun and set it on the hood and Shane reluctantly does too and surprisingly Andrea follows suit. Hesitantly I took the gun out of the back of my pants and set it on the hood. Feeling guilty I reached into my jackets inside pockets and pulled out the two I had hidden there. Shane widened his eyes and said, "Damn girl, where'd you get that many guns?"

"Does it matter?" I shot back, "Lucky for you I have about twelve others in my truck along with two duffel bags filled with African hunting knives."

Shane raised his brows, "You got imported African hunting knives?" He peeked inside of my truck. Nosy bastard.

I rolled my eyes, "Of course not. I got them off of an unfortunate dead man who did."

That shut him up and I looked to Hershel and said, "Do you want me to get the other guns?"

He raised his hand and shook his head, "No, it's alright. I trust you to keep 'em where they are."

I nodded and said, "Well, anyways. I'll go down to the church again and as far up to the Tracks if I have time."

Rick nodded, "Are you sure you want to go alone?"

I shrugged, "I'm sure. I think I can manage."

"What happens if we find her and she's bit?" Shane asks, "What happens then?"

Rick puts his hands at his sides and says, "We'll do what has to be done."

Maggie looked horrified as she asked, "And her mother? What do you tell her?"

Andrea scoffed, "The truth."

XXXXX

I made sure Anna was set with her fill on knives and after the last time I left her I decided to give her a small pistol. Telling her not to take it out unless it was a total emergency, like a crowd of walkers, I put it in the back of her pants and pulled her blue button down shirt tail over it.

Taking some knives of my own I shoved them in my boots and the now-empty inside pockets of my jacket. I slung my bows and arrows over my back as well. Ready to leave I started heading out and saw Daryl leave in the other direction.

I stopped when Rick called out to the both of us, "Hey! Daryl and Daisy!" We both turned towards him as he asked, "Are you two okay going separately?"

"I'm better off alone," I said, about to walk away again, not wanting to ask to go with Daryl as if I'm some petty back up, "Don't worry about me."

"Maybe its better if you go with Daryl," Rick called back to me.

Turning around on my heel, I asked, "Think I can't make it on my own?"

Rick shook his head, "I didn't say that, I just think it'll be better if you both go. You know that anything is better than being alone out there."

I scowled and Daryl spoke up, "Stop bein' so stubborn and just come with me for God's sake," he said and started walking.

I gave a look to Rick, but he just grinned as I went along with Daryl.

XXXXX

About a mile north east of Hershel's place and not a trace of Sophia found Daryl asked, "Doesn't any of this look familiar?" He asked it as if we've been here before.

"Well yeah!" I said sarcastically, "There's my favorite leaf. How could I forget this place?"

Daryl rolled his eyes and I swear I could see I flicker of a smile and he asked, "Did you come this way with Shane and Rick?"

I shook my head, "No. We took a trail further north, closer to the highway."

He nodded as we kept on walking. Finally we got to an abandoned home and Daryl and I don't hesitate to run inside. With an arrow in place I have Daryl's back as we scope the home for walkers. Something creaked upstairs and I quickly murmured, "It's an old house."

We walked into what looked like a kitchen and on a plaid blanket Daryl picked up a sardine can and said, "They've been eaten recently."

I turned around and lightly tapped Daryl on the arm as I gestured to a food pantry that was slightly opened. We surrounded it and with my boot I kicked it open. Inside were regular canned goods and at the bottom there was a makeshift bed. Looking between Daryl and the small bed that Sophia could've fit in I asked, "Do you think she was here?"

He shrugged, "There's no way we can be sure, but maybe."

I nodded as we headed back outside and started calling for her, but of course there was no reply. And as the sun started to go down just the slightest we headed back for camp. When we got sight of the barn I said, "You can tell Carol what we saw."

Daryl looked at me and asked, "Why me?"

"Because you've been with them longer, I'm a female that she can blame for everything, and she found a mug shot of me. Put two and two together. It'll just be better if you tell her. Okay?" I said, looking up at me.

He nodded, "Alright, whatever."

XXXXX

Daryl went in the RV where Carol was as I placed my bow and arrows in the bed of my truck along with my jacket.

"Hey, Daisy?" I turned around to see Dale walking towards me, "Did you find anything?"

I shrugged, "We found an abandoned home with recently opened cans of food and a small makeshift bed that Sophia could've easily made, but we have no idea if she was there or not…"

Dale nodded and then asked, "Carol and I are making dinner so if you and Annabelle want to come and join us in the RV you can."

I smiled and said, "Sure."


	12. Hallucinations and Kisses

**I would like to thank mrskaz453 for giving that long heated review of your thoughts on Carol and your love for Daryl/Daisy. Also thanks to the reviewer (like the username by the way) yes, Shane getting into Daisy's personal life is not good! Believe me the big blow out I'm brewing up for them is going to be huge! I love long reviews like that! So thank you for that and I hope to hear more from you :-)**

_Flashback _

In late July, I was washing clothes in the tin pan in the living room when I heard someone coming up the stairs singing. It was Lori. She burst into the living room, duffel bag over her shoulder, laughing and belting out those goofy summer-camp songs kids sing at night around the fire. I'd never heard Lori cut loose like this before. She positively glowed as she told me about the hot meals and the hot showers and all the friends she'd made. She'd even had a boyfriend who kissed her. "Everyone assumed I was a normal person," she said. "It was weird." Then she told me that it had occurred to her that if she got out of the Tracks, and away from the family, she might have a shot at a happy life. From then on, she began looking forward to the day she'd leave the Tracks and be on her own. When she asked about how I spent the first half of the summer I just told her about Dad basically pimping me off and him taking the money.

A few days later, a woman came knocking on our door. I thought it was the social worker again, but instead it was a teacher I recognized from my school. She had blonde hair up in a neat bun and bright red lipstick as she smiled down at me, "Are you Daisy Jackson?"

I nodded and said, "I am."

"Hi sweetie. I'm Mrs. Bryan from your school. I just wanted to talk about perhaps putting you in the senior class this year. You're the top in your class! Did you know that?" she talked wicked fast.

I shook my head and opened the door a bit wider as I walked outside. She didn't seem bothered by my trailer park surroundings…I liked her. I gestured her to the little table and chairs on our porch and she nodded, taking the hint. When we sat down she opened up a nice brief case with tons of papers inside and said, "Ya know that test we said you had to make up at the end of the last school year? Well, that was actually an IQ test and you scored Einstein smart, sweetie! With a one-hundred and sixty!" Her red lips pulled out really wide and I kind of felt good about myself.

I raised my brow, "Okay, so what happens next?" I asked, trying to get to the point and what else I have to do to get to the senior class.

She saw how I was taking this seriously and Mrs. Bryan stopped her happy-go-lucky act and said, "Well, you're an A-plus student and your teachers talk very highly of you and as to what happens next your teachers expect you to go into a sport so you can achieve socially and physically. I know that you're family may be having some trouble with money, so the school can help pay for it. Your teachers really want you to succeed, Daisy…" she said giving me that same smile. I liked how she just came straight forward and said it: that my family is basically broke.

Mrs. Bryan went on, "Is there any sport that you show interest in?"

I shrugged, "I wanted to run track, but my family couldn't afford the suit…"

She waved her hand and said, "Oh that'll be no problem sweetie! We can do that for ya," she scribbled something down in her notebook and went on, "There will also be an SAT examination the second day of the school year that you can prepare for by going down to the library every other day to study for. I'll give you the schedule before I leave. Also, we will set up different dates for exams that you should take before advancing. For you they should be real easy. They're for classes such as, English, World History, Trig, American Literature, US History, Pre-Calc, Chemistry and the language of your choice. I'll get a schedule set out for you for the rest of the summer by Tuesday. I gosh, I didn't even ask you yet, but would you like to advance to the senior class?"

I gave her the best smile I could give and said, "Might as well just get it done with, right?"

Mrs. Bryan smiled back and said, "Right. Daisy, what do you want to be when you're an adult? I mean for your job career?"

"Well, I would like to be a neurosurgeon…" I said.

She clapped her hands together and said, "That's great, Daisy! I'm positive you'll get there."

XXXXX

When I got home from my nightshift at the hospital, Lori was curled up on the sofa bed, a small pile of paperbacks next to her. Dad was sitting at the drafting table, rolling a cigarette. This was the first time I've seen him sitting at home casually for months. He beckoned me to follow him into the kitchen and I did.

Dad closed the door and looked at me gravely. "I overheard you talking badly about me to Lori earlier today."

I bit my bottom lip and he went on, "I'm disappointed in you. You know damn good and well that you are to respect your parents."

"Dad…" I said, "You have to take your obligations more seriously. Ya have to grow up a little."

"Who do you think you are?" he asked. "I'm your father."

"Then why don't you act like one?!" I blurted out.

I could see the blood surge into his face. He grabbed me by the arm on the bruises that he placed there before. "You apologize for that comment!"

"Or what?" I dared. I was on a roll now and there was no way he could stop my anger from flowing.

Dad shoved me up against the wall. "Or by God I'll show you who's boss around here."

His face was inches from mine as I asked, "What are you goin' to do to punish me? Stop takin' me to bars?"

Dad drew back his hand and slapped me across the face, but I didn't even feel the sting. I was used to it. "You watch your mouth, young lady. I can still whip your butt, and don't think I won't."

"You can't be serious," I said.

He pulled his belt out of the loops on his work pants and wrapped it a couple times around his knuckles. Grabbing me by the neck he shoved me outside and I could see someone lighting a cigarette outside of their trailer. It was Merle. Jesus.

"Apologize to me," he said.

"No."

Dad raised the belt. "Apologize."

"No."

"Then bend over."

I could run, but it didn't occur to me to either run or fight. The way I saw it, he was in a tighter spot than I was. He had to back down; because if he gave me a whipping, he would lose me forever and he would have absolutely no one to stick up for him anymore.

We stared at each other. Dad seemed to be waiting for me to drop my eyes, to apologize and tell him I was wrong so we could go back to being like we were, but I kept holding his gaze. Finally, to call his bluff, I turned around, bent over slightly, and rested my hands on my knees. Merle across the dirt road took a puff of his cigarette as he looked on.

I expected my father to turn and walk away, but there were six stinging blows on my back, each accompanied by a whistle of air. I could feel the welts rising even before I straightened up.

My Dad gave a _humph_ of triumph as he put his belt back on walked over to his car to go to the bar again. Merle was now standing, he'd listened to everything. I didn't look at him, but I could see from the corner of my eye the frown that he had on his face as if in sympathy. I bit my lip so I wouldn't cry.

Standing there in my shorts and tank top with no shoes on I bolted up into the woods, pushing tree branches and wild grape vines out of my face. I thought I'd start crying now that I was away from the Tracks, but instead, I threw up. I ate some wild mint to get rid of the taste of bile, and I walked for what felt like hours through the silent hills. The air was clear and cool, and the forest floor was thick with leaves that had fallen from the buckeyes and poplars. Late in the afternoon, I sat down on a tree truck, leaning forward because my back still stung. All through the long walk, the pain had kept me thinking, and by the time I reached the tree trunk, I had made two decisions.

The first was that I'd had my last whipping. No one was ever going to do that to me again. The second was that, like Lori, I was going to get out of the Tracks. The sooner, the better. I had no idea where I would go, but I did know I was going. I also knew it would not be easy. People got stuck in the Tracks. I had been counting on Dad to get us out, but I now knew I had to do it on my own. It would take saving and planning. I decided the next day I'd go to The Dollar Store and buy a pink plastic piggy bank I'd seen there. I'd put in the seventy-five dollars I had managed to save while working at Becker's. It would be the beginning of my escape fund.

_Present Day _

Waking up early I run into Rick and he places his hands on his hips, as if in deep thought he slowly asked, "Daisy…did you stay with any other groups before you met us at the old camp?"

In truth I nodded, "Yeah, two to be exact."

He looked up at me and asked, "What were they like?"

I shrugged, "The first one was the one I told you about in Atlanta. Mostly everyone there died except me and Anna and a few other men. From there, the rest of us who survived in Atlanta went to a town about five miles off from here…I'm just glad Anna and I got out of their alive." Rick raised a brow and I went on, "Their leader was crazy. It was a total dictatorship…a few guys got me and Anna out. You wouldn't want to take your family there," I looked up at him and said plainly, "Philip would most likely kill you." I scowled when I said Philip's name. The dirty man who danced with me at the bar and the son of a bitch who killed Jack's brother. I shook my head as if trying to get the memories out of my head.

Rick's shoulders drooped and I asked him, "Why are you asking?"

"Well, Hershel the other day told me that if we find Sophia and when Carl gets better that he's expecting us to leave," he replied as if in defeat.

I licked my lips and said jokingly, "I'll break my leg when he gets better if ya want?"

Rick gave me a smile and took the joke lightly, "Naw, that's alright…that town with the crazy leader…why exactly did you and Anna leave?"

I shrugged, "The leader killed my friend's brother and he started to come on to me. I knew him from previous years where he was still a nasty bastard and I just didn't like him. I went on raids with him to get supplies and he killed other folks who caused no harm. The guy's who survived Atlanta with me helped Anna and I get out of that place. The whole perimeter of the town was blocked as if the Governor, that's what they called him, didn't want anyone to go out. The guy's who were patrolling helped me get out at night."

"You said that he would most likely kill me…"

I gave him the smallest smile and said, "He doesn't like other people questioning his authority…no offense Rick, but I think you might be one of the few people to do that. You or Shane…"

He nodded and didn't act like he was pissed at me for saying that.

XXXXX

After I had breakfast I walked out to where everyone was hovered around _my _truck _again. _Is that going to be our new meet up place or something?

When I got there prepared and ready for the day as I was yesterday Rick started, "Okay, everyone's going to get a new part of the grid today. If you made it as far as the farm house," he looked at Daryl and I, "I figured she may have gone further east than where we've been so far."

"I'd like to help," a teenage boy said and I figured out his name was Jimmy. "I know the area pretty well."

Rick raised his brow, "Hershel's okay with this?"

"Um, yeah," he sounded hesitant and unsure of himself, "He said I should ask you."

Rick nodded, "Alright, thanks."

"From what Daryl and Daisy found the other day is screaming Sophia to me. Anyone could've been holed up in that farm house," Shane said, leaning on the truck putting his boots on while I got my black leather jacket out and started to put it on.

Andrea looked between Shane and I and said, "Anybody includes her, right?"

Daryl shrugged, "The makeshift bed could've fit someone as small as her, but not any larger."

I nodded and added, "And the freshly eaten cans of food."

Andrea gave us a nod and said, "Good lead."

"I think we're starting to pick up her trail again," Rick said.

I looked to the barn and said, "I'm going to borrow a horse and head further east, like ya said earlier Rick and see what I can find." Daryl gave me a look when I said that either telling me I just stole his idea or I wasn't going alone. I wasn't sure which.

He quickly said, "I'll go with you too. Maybe we can go over to that ridge though, get a bird's eye view of the whole grid. If she's down there, we'll spot her," he pointed at a lower elevated point on the map. I looked up at him and I couldn't help it, but to get frustrated. Why didn't anybody think I could go by myself?

Before I could object Rick nodded and said, "Sounds good."

"Hey, maybe you can find your chupacabra up there too," T-Dog said with a grin.

I smiled to myself remembering Daryl talk about them before when we were kids. Even Jimmy choked down a laugh and I said, "_Chupar, _meaning 'to suck' and _cabra _'goat'. So it literally means 'goat sucker' in Spanish. You talked about it when we were kids too," I laughed.

Rick asked with a raised brow and Dale went on to explain, "First time at camp Daryl went out squirrel hunting and he said he saw a chupacabra."

Jimmy choked down a laugh and Daryl asked, "What are you laughing about jack-ass?"

He replied, "You believe in a goat sucking dog?"

"Do you believe in dead people walking around?"

Jimmy was about to pick up the shotgun Dale set down on the hood earlier before, but Rick stopped him by grabbing it out of his reach, "Hey, ever fire one before?"

"Well if I'm going to be out I want one," Jimmy replied.

I gave a small laugh and said, "Just pull the trigger, easy."

Rick rolled his eyes with a flicker of a smile and Daryl and I started to walk off to the barn.

XXXXX

Daryl and I quickly prepared Hershel's horses and with him riding a horse…it reminded me of my last summer on the Tracks before I finally got out. That one week at the fairgrounds with Daryl and Merle and their horse. It was one of the best weeks of my life and I felt completely and totally free.

As we rode into the woods we caught a couple squirrels here and there just like we used to. A squirrel would run up a tree and I'd pull back the arrow and shoot. Daryl pulled the squirrel out and tied it up to the saddle and said, "You always get them right in the head…"

We go across the edge of a steep hill leading down to a quarry and Daryl stops me. I look down into the running river and see something against a log in the murky water. Daryl parks his horse and gets down, I'm about to do the same, but Daryl stops me and says, "I've got it." I roll my eyes as he carefully goes down the slope. I stroke the ears of the horse I'm riding and it throws its head back in pleasure. "It's her doll!" He calls up to me.

"Sophia!" I shout out and Daryl does the same. We do this for awhile, to no avail.

Taking the doll with him he climbs back up and I hold out my hand to help him with the last step although I'm sure he didn't need it. We begin to continue through the woods. We stop along the edge again as crows fly out of nearby bushes; his horse steps back and makes worried noises. "Woah, easy," Daryl said yanking on his horse's reins. Surprisingly my horse is rather calm and nuzzles Daryl's, as if to comfort her. Then she starts licking his face and I pull back on the reins slightly and say, "Come on. Stop bein' nasty. We ain't got time for that. We're on a mission, remember?"

I saw a flash of a small smile on Daryl as our horses got back on track and started going to the trail again. All of a sudden I heard a hiss and the next thing I knew Daryl's horse got on her back legs, spooked. Daryl struggled and I quickly reached out and grabbed the reins of his horse, but all it took was one last kick and Daryl was down on the ground rolling down the embankment. I felt my heart stop beating for a moment and my hands shook as I tied both of the horses to a tree and shouted, "Daryl!"

I bit my tongue so hard that it bled, but the sound has already escaped. _Stupid! _I tell myself. _What a stupid thing to do! _I run down the slope towards Daryl, a bit nervous that the woods would come alive with flesh eating assailants. I press against my heels when I hit the slippery rocks flowing with water.

My foot just hit the bottom, my left foot slipping and I hear a snap and I we both hiss, "Son of a bitch," as my ankle snaps. As soon as it does I can feel my body working to try to heel it already as I limp towards Daryl.

I notice that one of the arrows that were slung around his back pierced his torso. "Daisy, why'd you come down? Now it's gonna be nearly impossible to get back up…" he gasped barely able to speak.

"Be quiet," I tell him as I sling his left arm over my shoulder and pull him up.

Daryl hissed with a, "God damnit woman." He's so weak the best he can do is not to resist. I try to help him, but despite the fact that I know he's doing all he can to keep quiet, sharp cries of pain escape him.

"Look, Daryl, I'm going to get you over to the dirt so I can help you, alright?"

"Great," he mumbles.

I crouch down beside him. No matter what happens, I tell myself, don't stop until he's out of the water. "On three," I say. "One, two, three!" I lift him up and start walking quickly over to the land where I set him down on the edge of the water.

"Let's get you cleaned up," I said, "Keep an eyes on the woods for me, okay?"

Without thinking I start to unbutton his shirt and lift the material over the arrow. Ripping some of the cloth off I tie it over his torso just above the arrow. I've got two canteens of water slung over my shoulder and I prop them against the wood in the stream so that so that one is always filling while I pour the other over Daryl's body.

Since treating the wound seems pointless when he's lying in what's become a mud puddle, I manage to prop him up against a log. He sits there, uncomplaining, while I wash away all the traces of dirt around the arrow. I take out one of my knives and slice the very ends of the arrow and start to dig the arrow out of his side, which causes him to wince, but the minute I take his wet shirt and place it over the wound he sighs in relief. While he dries in the sun, I wash my filthy jacket and spread it across a boulder. Then I take the small sample size bottle of alcohol that was in one of my cargo pants many pockets and quickly dump it on the wound. He hisses and this is when I notice how hot his skin is becoming. The layer of mud and the bottles of water have disguised the fact that he's burning with fever. Slowly I murmur, "You must be hungry…?"

"Not really. It's funny," he says, "I haven't been hungry for days." That's when I know how sick he is.

He looks up at the ridge as if trying to imagine us climbing up it and I shake my head and say, "Don't worry about it now…"

Furrowing his brows, noticing my worry for him he says, "Pretty awful, huh?" He's watching me closely.

I look away from him and walk towards the murky water and say, "I'll find your crossbow, alright? If you just sit down and keep quiet. And don't even think about goin' up that ridge. You'll just fall down and most likely break somethin' in your condition."

He huffs, doesn't complain but instead advises me, "Get a long stick to touch the bottom…you'll look like a blind woman if ya don't…"

I want to reply with a smart-ass remark, but I just listen to him instead. I break off a branch from a nearby tree at the edge of the ridge and start tapping the branch at the bottom until I hit something hard. Reaching down I grab his crossbow and start to walk over to him in triumph, but I stop when I hear him murmuring to himself, "Merle…a girl…they lost a little girl…shut up…I tried to find ya bro…Daisy cares…"

"Daryl…" I murmured. Damn, that fever just hit new levels if he was talking crazy like this.

Then I heard something as I walked closer to him and his passed out body came into view, it was the low and hungry growl of one of the brain eating bitches. "Shit!" I hiss as I limp towards him rather quickly for having my ankle busted and tackle the walker to the ground as it clawed at Daryl's legs. With my arrows across the river I look for the nearest resources as the walker bit the air and I pressed my hand down on its forehead. If I reached down to my boots to get a knife the son of a bitch was more than likely to take a bite of my arm. As quick as I can I jump off of it and grab a rock next to the river and tackle the walker down to the ground again and beat its head in with it and I hear the crack of the skull and I bring it up and smash it down again seeing the brains finally spill out and splash against my face. I don't waste time going blood crazy when I hear another growl behind me, "Shoot!" I hiss and grab a knife out of my boots, but the walker comes up from behind me and smashes down on top of me first and I smack my head against the hard rock and I feel like cotton was stuffed in my left ear and I can barely hear a thing. My jaw crunched and I could feel blood coming out of my mouth. I quickly recovered though and stabbed the knife into its decaying brain and the walker's body falls heavily on top of me. I push it off and stand. I put my hands on my knees, dizzy and tired. I straighten up and grab the knife out of the head and wash it off without dipping it into the water like some idiots do.

Daryl is still murmuring and I hear him ask blankly, "Did that walker just say my name?"

I wipe the sweat off of my forehead probably wiping blood on it too and huffed, "Yeah, right before it crapped gold," I go along with his hallucination talk and say sarcastically, "Wow, I wonder if those things were _really _going to eat us."

"Shut up," he mumbled, "So…what next Doc?"

I look up the ridge and say, "I think it's time we start to climb up."

Sitting up he says, "Finally."

I get my jacket and canteens and adjust my bows and arrows across my back. Before we go up I tie the sleeves of his shirt and the edges of our shirts together to create a rope like device. I tie it around my waste and knot it and then lead the rest of it to Daryl's waist and tie it around him with a knot at the end. "What's the point of this?" he gasped.

"So if one of us falls or somethin' we can quickly grab the one who still has proper footing. Here," I hand him the branch I cut off earlier and he takes it in his left hand so he can pull himself up on the trees at the side of the slope. I hold onto the two person belt with my left and start grabbing the tree branches on the ridge with my right and we pull ourselves up.

We were so close to the top and then I heard Daryl start to murmur again to himself. "I liked it better when you were missin'…yeah, since when?"

He lost his footing for a split second as he pulled up. "Daryl!" I cried. I grabbed his arm and he grabbed mine. Daryl quickly got himself back up, but he dropped the branch he was using as a walking stick and I felt tears hit behind my eyes worried as hell. "Damnit, stop talkin' like a crazy person, Daryl."

Daryl kept on murmuring to himself, "Worthless ass," Daryl spits back, "You talk a big game, but you was never there. You ain't here, now; some things never change."

I knew he was imagining Merle. Who else would he be imagining? Finally we were standing up at the top of the ridge and Daryl shouted, "Yeah, you better run!"

I smacked him on the arm lightly and hissed, "Just be quiet will ya? Wanna draw more walkers here or what?" I quickly untied the belt around me and tied the rest of it over Daryl's wound.

Seeing he was now able to walk without help we went around the ridge to the other side where I tied up the horses. When I saw he was about to go up on the one he was on before I stopped him saying, "After what happened before, I don't think so."

Daryl rolled his eyes, but seeing that I made a point he got on the other one and I hopped on the nervous one.

As we rode back to Hershel's, Daryl looked over at me and said rather quietly, "Thanks for what ya did back there…"

I shrugged and said, "That was nothin'. Knowin' you I'd guess you could've gotten out yourself…" there was a pause before I spoke up and said, "You were talkin' to yourself, Daryl…"

He looked at me and said, "I figured that after you told me to shut up a while ago and called me crazy."

I nodded, "Yeah…sorry."

"Don't be," he said, "I probably would've done the same to you."

I smile at that and we finally reach the barn. We put the horses lazily back into their stalls and start heading out to the house, Daryl and I both limping. Him from his sore leg and me from my busted up ankle.

I hear someone shout, but I don't make anything of it because I'm as tired as hell. In the distance I see the guys running towards us. Rick looks at us with a gun in his hand aimed at Daryl's head, thinking he was a walker and he quickly puts it down when Daryl says, "That's the third time you pointed that thing at my head. You gonna pull the trigger or what?"

Out of nowhere a gun shot rang through the air and the next thing I knew Daryl was down on the ground. I screamed in horror and tears flowed as I knelt beside him. Rick was on the other side of him as Daryl murmured, "I was kidding…" before passing out.

I sighed in relief when I saw it only grazed his temple. Quickly I wiped the few tears that fell away realizing that I didn't lose him. Rick and I lifted him up and helped him across the field.

Andrea and Dale ran over to us and she cried, "Oh God! Is he dead?!" she looked so scared that I knew she was sorry for what she did and I didn't bother holding anything against her.

"Just unconscious," Rick said, "You just grazed him."

Glenn looked at the both of us and said to me, "What the hell happened? I mean look at you! You're ear is all one big bruise and you have blood all of your face! Not to mention you're both limping!"

I bite my bottom lip only to make it bleed more and I say, "Tell me something I don't know, Glenn."

"Hey guys! Isn't this Sophia's?" T-Dog calls behind us and I turn to see Sophia's doll that was tied on Daryl's makeshift belt.

I frowned and said, "Yeah…Daryl found it in the creek bed."

XXXXX

When we got inside we laid Daryl on one of the beds and he awoke. Annabelle ran over to me and hugged me and then quickly looked at my ear and then back at Daryl's bloody body with questioning eyes. I shook my head and said, "It's nothing. Just go outside or something. I'll get cleaned up alright?" She obeyed and went out with Dale and Andrea. I'm glad she listens like she's supposed to.

As I sat down next to Daryl I started to clean him up with shaking hands. "Can ya speed it up a little?" he asks jokingly

"No, just shut up and eat these," I say with a small smile as Patricia placed a small plate with sliced pears on it.

I gestured him to take off his dirty shirt and he obeyed and started picking at the pears. After I applied some more alcohol on the wound I noticed it started to look better.

Hershel came in and said, "Daisy, I'll take care of him. Just take the ointment I put on the dresser and apply it generously to your ear."

I nod and start doing as I'm told. The cool cream against my ear feels amazing and I put my hair up in a bun because when it rubs up against my ear it annoys the hell out of me. When I turn back Maggie set a pitcher full of water and a bowl on the table at the end of the bed and says I can wash my face off there. As I do so Hershel starts stitching Daryl's wound and Rick comes in and says, "From where you two have been you've cut the grid right in half."

"Yeah, you're welcome," Daryl says sarcastically.

"How's he doing?" Rick asks.

Hershel's mouth twisted a bit as he said, "I never knew we would be going through the antibiotics so quickly," he washed his hands off with the water I just finished up using. "You took Nelly, as in Nervous Nelly. I could've told you if you bothered to ask."

Daryl rolled his eyes and looked up at the ceiling as I said, "Sorry, but both of them are safe and in the barn now."

"It's a wonder how you're people have survived this long…" Hershel said before walking out of the room. Rick followed and it was just me and Daryl. We didn't talk we just rested in the room. I felt so helpless at this point with my ankle and ear both busted up.

I limped over to the chair in the corner and plopped myself down in it. I curled myself up and started to close my eyes. Soon I drifted off into sleep.

XXXXX

My eyes fluttered open as I heard the door creak open to the room. Not moving I heard it was Carol as she asked Daryl who was awake in bed, "How ya feelin'? You must be starvin'. I brought you some dinner." I could smell the food from the seat I was curled up in.

I could feel their eyes on me as I pretended to be asleep and then I heard a kissing noise…I held my breath as she kissed him quickly and I could hear him move in the bed. "I've got stitches..." he said, sounding almost uncomfortable as I felt awkward sitting here.

"You did more for my little girl today than her own daddy ever did for her in his whole life," she said sadly and even then when jealousy was boiling up inside of me I felt sympathy for the woman.

I could hear the sheets of the bed moving again as Daryl replied, "It's nothing that Rick and Shane wouldn't have done…"

"I know," she replied, "You're every bit as good as them…" I could feel their eyes on me as she asked, "Um…should I get something for her?"

"I think ya should," Daryl replied, "She'd like that did you know she saved my sorry ass out there? If ya get her some then she'll at least think that you're thankful for what she did for Sophia," he added a bit grimly.

Carol walked out of the room and I shot up and asked, "What the hell was that?" Daryl looked confused and I said, "Gosh, Daryl…you didn't have to be rude and make her feel bad about not getting any for me. The way you said it was so rude…"

"You're not upset about her kissin' me?!" Daryl asked, annoyed at my lecture.

I threw my hands up in the air and said, "Not really. I mean, maybe, just a little, but that's not the point! The point is that woman just lost her daughter and I really don't care if she doesn't give a shit about me. I'm used to that sort of stuff and you know it. Don't be rude like that to a woman like Carol. She's been through a lot."

"Why do you even care? You've known her for what, five, maybe six days? Do you even notice the way she looks at you?! She looks at you as if your trash and it annoys the hell out of me!" his voice rose and I whispered for him to shut up.

Shaking my head I said, "Why do I care? I care because every night I think, damn, what if that happened to Anna? Believe me, I count my lucky stars that Anna is still with me, but for now all I can do is help a woman who isn't so lucky."

Daryl shut up after I said that and slowly I walked over to the bed and sat next to him. After a moment I said, "Sorry for blowing up on you like that…"

He sat up and asked, "Do you notice how you keep on saying sorry to me? Did it ever cross your mind that maybe I don't deserve them?"

I leaned back against the headboard and started to sarcastically talk about how that's just the kind of person I am, but I was cut off when he leaned over me and kissed me. I wrapped my arms around him as he got on top of me. He grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled my head back as he kissed my neck. I put my legs around him and gasped for breath. His hands went down to the ripped up hem of my tank top, about to pull it off, but I stopped him quickly when I heard footsteps come down the hall. Daryl quickly got off of me and sat next to me. He took the plate of steaming food Carol got for him and stuffed some potatoes into his mouth as I sat up and crossed my legs modestly and put my hands in my lap.

Carol came in with a tray of food for me and handed it to me. I took it with a smile and said, "Aw thank you Carol. You're too kind."

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	13. Who Can Resist A Brooder?

**Thank you for the thoughtful reviews! I really love them and hope to hear more from you all! R&R, it would make my day :-) **

_Flashback _

That fall I started school all prepared with my grueling testing done and college applications filing in and out the door. Mrs. Bryan got me on the varsity cross country team easily. Coach Collins times me every morning as I run a mile on the track saying that I could get on the indoor track and field too during the winter.

One day two guys showed up on the Tracks who were different from anyone I'd ever met. They were filmmakers from Atlanta, and they'd been sent to the Tracks as part of a government program to bring cultural uplift to the poor parts of Georgia. Their names were Ken Fink and Bob Gross.

At first, I thought they were joking. Ken Fink and Bob Gross? As far as I was concerned, they might as well have said their names were Ken Stupid and Bob Ugly. But Ken and Bob weren't joking. They didn't think their names were funny at all, and they didn't smile when I asked if they were putting me on.

Ken and Bob both talked so fast that it was sometimes hard to follow them. Although they had no sense of humor about their names, Ken and Bob did like to joke a lot. It wasn't the sort of Tracks humor I was used to—Polack jokes and guys cupping their hand under their armpit to make fart noises. Ken and Bob had this smart, competitive way of joking where one would make a wisecrack and the other would have a comeback and the first would have a retort to the comeback. They could keep it up until my head spun.

One weekend Ken and Bob showed a Swedish film in the school auditorium. It was shot in black and white, and had subtitles and a plot heavy on symbolism, so fewer than a dozen people came, even though it was free. Afterward, Lori showed Ken and Bob some of her illustrations. They told her she had talent and said if she was serious about becoming an artist, she needed to go to Atlanta. It was a place of energy and creativity and intellectual stimulation the likes of which we'd never seen. It was filled with people who, because they were such unique individuals, didn't fit in anywhere else. It was the Georgian version of New York City, they said.

That night Lori and I lay in our rope beds and discussed Atlanta. The things I had heard always made it sound like a big, noisy place with a lot of pollution and mobs of people in suits elbowing one another on the sidewalks. But Lori began to see Atlanta as a sort of Emerald City—this glowing, bustling place at the end of a long road where she could become the person she was meant to be.

What Lori liked most about Ken and Bob's description was that the city attracted people who were different. Lori was about as different as it was possible on the Tracks. While almost all the other kids wore jeans, Converse sneakers, and T-shirts, she showed up at school in army boots, a white dress with red polka dots and a jean jacket with dark poetry she'd painted on the back. The other kids threw bars of soap at her, pushed one another into her path, and wrote graffiti about her on the bathroom walls. In return, she cursed them out in Latin.

At home she read and painted late into the night, by candlelight or kerosene lamp if the electricity was turned off. She liked Gothic details; mist hanging over a silent lake, gnarled roots heaving up from the earth, a solitary crow in the branches of a bare tree on the shoreline. I though Lori was amazing, and I had no doubt she would become a successful artist, but only if she could get to Atlanta. I decided I wanted to go there, too, and that winter we came up with a plan. Lori would leave by herself for Atlanta in June, after she graduated. She'd settle in, find a place for us, and with me coming as soon as I could.

I told Lori about my escape fun, the seventy-five dollars I'd saved. From now on, I said, it would be our joint fund. We'd take on extra work after school and put everything we earned into a piggy bank. Lori could take it to Atlanta and use it to get established, so that by the time I arrived, everything would be set.

Lori had always made very good posters, for football rallies, for the plays the drama club put on, and for candidates running for student council. Now she started doing commissioned posters for a dollar-fifty apiece. She was too shy to solicit orders, so I did it for her. Lots of kids at the high school wanted customized posters to hand on their bedroom walls—of their boyfriend's or girlfriend's name, of their car or their astrological sign or their favorite band. Lori designed the names in big fat overlapping three-dimensional letter like the kind of rock albums, then painted them in Day-Glo colors, outlined in india ink so the letters popped, and surrounded them with stars and dots and squiggly lines that made the letters seem like they were moving. The posters were so good that word of mouth spread, and soon Lori had such a backlog of orders that she was up working until one or two every morning.

I made money babysitting, giving blood, shifts at the hospital on the weekends and doing other kids' homework. I did book reports, science essays and math. I charged a dollar per assignment and guaranteed at least an A- or the customer was entitled to a full refund. After school, I babysat for five dollars an hour and could usually do the homework then. I also tutored kids for three dollars an hour.

Annabelle finally figured out what we were up to one day and silently she would put some money into the pig, which she named Oz, without looking for thanks or praise. She didn't know I saw her put money into there and so I didn't ask her anything like as to where she got the money.

We kept Oz on the old sewing machine in our bedroom. Oz had no plugged hole on the bottom, and the slot on the top was too narrow to work bills out, even if you used a knife, so once you put money into Oz, it stayed there. We tested it to make sure. We couldn't count the money, but because Oz was translucent we could see our hard earned money accumulating when we held him up to the light.

XXXXX

One day that winter, when I came home from school, a gold Cadillac Coupe DeVille was parked in front of the house. I wondered if the welfare agency had found some millionaires to be our foster parents and they had arrived to take us away, but Dad was inside the house, twirling a set of keys on his finger. He explained that the Cadillac was the new official Jackson family vehicle. Lori was carrying on about how it was one thing to live in a three-room shack with no electricity, since there was a certain dignity to poverty, but to live in a three-room shack and own a gold Cadillac meant you were bona fide poor white trash.

"How'd you get it?" I asked Dad.

"One helluva good poker hand," he said, "and an even better bluff."

We'd owned a couple of cars since we'd been on the Tracks, but they were true buckets of bolts, with shuddering engines and cracked windshields, and as we drove along, we could see the blur of asphalt through the rusted-out floor panels. Those cars never lasted more than a couple of months and unlike our other cars we didn't name them. The Coupe DeVille actually had an unexpired inspection sticker. It was such a beauty that Dad declared the time had come to revive the tradition of naming our cars. "That there Caddy," he said, "strikes me as Elvis."

It crossed my mind that Dad ought to sell Elvis and use the money to install an indoor toilet and buy us all new clothes. The black leather shoes I had bought for fifty cents at the Dollar General Store were held together with safety pins, which I'd tried to blacken with a Magic Marker so you wouldn't notice them. I'd also used Magic Markers to make colored blotches on my legs that I hoped would camouflage the holes in my pants. I figured that was less noticeable than if I sewed on patches. I had one blue pair and one green pair, so my legs, when I took my pants off, were covered with blue and green spots.

But Dad loved Elvis too dearly to consider selling it. And the truth was, I loved Elvis as much. Elvis was as long and sleek as a racing yacht. It had air-conditioning, gold shag upholstery, windows that went up and down with the push of a button, and a working turn signal, so Dad didn't have to stick his arm out. Every time we drove through town in Elvis, I'd nod graciously and smile at the people on the sidewalk, feeling like an heiress. "You've got true noblesse oblige, Daisy," Dad would say.

Lori grew to love Elvis, too. On the weekends we began to drive to craft fairs all throughout Georgia: shows where bearded men in overalls played dulcimers and women in granny dresses sold corncob back scratchers and coal sculptures of black bears and miners. We filled Elvis's trunk with Lori's paintings and tried to sell them at the fairs. Lori also drew pastel portraits on the spot for anyone willing to pay eighteen dollars, and every now and then she got a commission.

We all slept in Elvis on those trips, because a lot of times we made only enough to pay for the gas, or not even that. Still, it felt good to be on the move again. Our trips in Elvis reminded me how easy it was to pick up and move on when the urge struck. Once you'd resolved to go, there was nothing to it at all.

_Present Day_

I got up out of the bed of my truck the next morning tired, back hurting like hell, but I didn't say anything out loud. Last night after eating and talking for a while with Daryl he finally fell asleep and I crept out, not really wanting to wake him by accidentally kicking him or something if I did eventually fall asleep next to him…that would be awful. I left him because of that and also the bed sheets were becoming unbearably hot as I felt his feverish skin, but I decided to let him sleep it off with a cold pack I carefully placed slightly underneath his arm. Annabelle was already sleeping in the back seat of the truck so I got into the bed instead next to my motorcycle and some gas tanks.

Rolling up my sleeping bag I already saw that Annabelle was up and when Dale saw me looking curiously around for her he said, "She's feeding the chickens with Carl and Lori."

Smiling, I nodded and said, "Thanks."

He stopped me when I was walking over to the chicken coop where my sister was and said, "I still have the other tent in the RV if you and Annabelle want it."

I shook my head in reply and said, "Thank you, but that's alright…I have a feeling we're not going to be staying here long."

"Why do you say that?" he asked, kindly offering me an apple which I thankfully took.

Looking at the house I said, "I heard Hershel expects us to leave after we find Sophia."

Getting a curious look on his face Dale asked, "Do you think we'll find her soon?"

I nodded and started to leave as I called behind me, "I hope so." And that ended our conversation.

When I got to the chicken coop I kissed Annabelle's head and sat next to Lori as we watched them throw chicken feed in the air, laughing a bit as they threw it at each other. Watching Anna laugh was something that I always was thankful for. Thankful that she was alive and able to laugh like this, but there was something about the air at the farm that made me feel like I shouldn't be so happy about it…like I should feel bad or something. Perhaps it was the thought of Sophia, who was I think the same age as Annabelle, stumbling through the woods scared and alone. That could've been Anna a week ago if I didn't come back from my hunting trip. If I didn't come back…who would take care of her? Lori, perhaps? But she already has a child to look after…Carol, maybe? Naw, she would probably look at Annabelle as the girl who lived instead of her daughter…Daryl?

The loud cry of a dying chicken pulled me from my reverie and I looked down at the chickens Anna and Carl were feeding. They still had the happy smiles on their faces and the chickens all looked fine. I got up and walked around the chicken coop to see where the source of the cry came from. On the path leading to the red barn that I thought was used for supplies, I saw Patricia taking a brown moving sunflower seed bag to the barn. If I closed my eyes and listened carefully I could hear the cries again in the distance. Watching her carefully I saw her open the doors quickly to the barn and throw the bag in and shut the doors again. Patricia looked around her as if she were being hunted and wiped her hands on the denim dress she was wearing as if she just got done with the dirtiest job in the world.

As I went back to Annabelle I wondered what the hell was in the barn.

XXXXX

I was walking towards Daryl's tent when Andrea popped out she gave me a small smile and said, "I'm sorry for what happened yesterday."

Furrowing my brows, I smiled back sympathetically and said, "It's not me that you aimed at."

She nodded, "Right, it's just I know that you're close to Daryl and all so…I'm sorry."

I shrugged it off and gave her a reassuring smile, "You're forgiven."

Andrea smiled back and nodded, "Okay," and walked away.

When I pushed the tent flap back Daryl laid there in bed with the bandage on his side and his leg propped up a bit on a pillow. I sat down on a lawn chair and kicked my long legs out in front of me and asked, "How are you?"

"Fine," he grumbled, twirling one of his bows around between his fingers. He had a book called _The Case of the Missing Man _beside him. Reading the title I thought of Merle, the missing man in our camp.

Pursing my lips I ask, "Are you sure about that because the last I knew you were burnin' up with a fever."

He looked up at me, surprised and asked, "I was?"

I nodded, "Yeah, that's why I left you when you fell asleep the other night and of course the side effects: you talking like a crazy person and not wanting to eat for a while."

Daryl looks back down at his bow and he said, "I woke and you were gone, I was worried…but then I saw you were sleepin' in the back of your truck."

I have to laugh a bit as I ask, "You were worried about me? Have you taken a look at yourself lately?"

Just as seriously he says, "Have ya taken a look at _your_self lately? If you haven't noticed your ankle is broken and I'm guessing you can't hear out your left ear, seeing how bruised it is."

"I'm fine," I hissed, "I can walk on my ankle fine and I can probably run on it if I tried hard enough. My ear is fine too."

"Right," he said sarcastically.

Putting my hands on me I take that as my cue to leave and I get up, "Later, seeing that your fever is obviously down I'm leaving."

Walking out of the tent I see that Jimmy, Rick and Shane are around my truck _again._

"The creek flows south, right down past that farm house you and Daryl found," Rick said looking up at me, "Maybe Sophia dropped it there and turned and brought it down stream."

Shane pointed at the map and asked, "So you think she went up north? What's up that way?" he looked at Jimmy.

He shrugged, "A housing development went in maybe ten years ago."

"Wiltshire Estates," I added, "Nice place. A lot of people lived there though; maybe a few of them are still there." I didn't say if I thought they were walkers or actually alive.

Rick looked up at me and said, "We'll take a run up there after some gun practice with the others. After what went down with Daryl and you…"

I scowled a bit, but shut it up before Rick could see it as I said, "We just won't take the horses anymore."

"I don't know who I could go in with as a partner," Shane said and turned around as Glenn brought us all apples.

I bit into one of the crisp apples and thought for a moment before I said, "Maybe Andrea…"

They looked up at me as if they were surprised and I explained, "She's probably one of the most eager to learn. Going out with you to the housing development will give her some practice most likely."

Shane nodded and said, "Alright, it's settled then."

Glenn stayed standing there for a moment looking at Rick and then back at Lori as if he were nervous. I raised a brow and Shane noticed something too as he snapped Glenn out of it and asked, "Can I have the binoculars?"

"Oh, yeah, sure," Glenn stumbled on his words as he took the dark green binoculars out of his bag.

Shane took them and said, "Thanks."

Glenn nodded, "No problem. Bye." And he walked away.

What's up today? Everyone's acting so strange.

"We'd like to join you for gun training today," a girl I recognized as Beth said.

Rick shook his head and said, "Hershel was very clear: I cannot allow you in anything we do without his okay."

"He doesn't like it, but he consented," Beth reassured him.

Patricia nodded, "Otis was the only one who knew guns. Now that he's gone…we all have to protect ourselves. Her father saw the sense in that."

Rick looked down and said, "No offense, but I'll ask Hershel myself."

Shane walked over to Carl and talked to him for a while as I went over to Annabelle who was carving images into a tree branch with one of her throwing knives. I challenged her to make a bear and she did within a few minutes. This is probably what she did in her spare time when I was out all these times.

"Daisy!" Lori called. I looked up in surprise and walked over to the small circle consisting of Shane, Rick, Lori, Dale and Carl who was sitting on a chair looking at the ground as if upset.

Rick looked back at Annabelle who was carving away at the branch and asked, "Does Anna know how to shoot?"

I looked at Carl as I said, "Yeah, I taught her myself when she was about seven years old…"

Instead of questioning me about my old home environment like I thought he would Rick looked up at Lori with a raised brow and said, "See? Annabelle was completely alone with a few guns when Daisy was out hunting. Daisy and Shane both have taught kids younger than Carl. They're good teachers." Right at that moment I felt a bit awkward, as if I've been pulled into a battle I didn't want to fight in.

Lori looked between me and Shane and she looked as if she lost the battle. She sighed, walked over to Carl and took his face in her hands and said, "I want you to take this seriously and you will behave responsibly and if I hear from anyone in this camp that you are not living up to our expectations-."

"He won't let you down," Rick interrupted.

Carl nodded, "Yeah," he agreed.

And with that I went back to Annabelle and told her that we were going on a trip. We hopped into the truck and we drove down the edge of the Hershel's fenced off property. Shane and Rick placed bottles and cans on the fence where as Anna and I tied them on tree branches. Rick and Shane looked at us curiously and I explained, "What these people are goin' to be shooting are goin' to be movin', right?"

The wind moved the cans and bottles slightly and when Andrea, Jimmy, Patricia, Beth, Carl and Carol came over a lot of them shot Rick's and Shane's fenced ones easily and quickly moved to mine and Anna's tree. Shane put his hands on his hips and looked at me and Anna as we watched them carefully as if in defeat.

As we walked past them I patted Andrea on the back after she shot a bottle right off the rope handling it and said, "You're a natural," supportively.

She smiled in triumph and said thanks.

XXXXX

After the training session I took the long way back to the farm house past the barn to see what Patricia did earlier today. There were two barns to be exact: the white one which Daryl and I placed the horses in and a red one that I assumed was for supplies. Walking past the red one I heard it, the low moans and groans of about over a dozen walkers. I stood there listening to them as they smelt me and heard my feet shuffle and clawed at the walls in response. I knew a few people who did something like this…the Governor to be specific. Whether it was for personal family reasons or for some twisted up fun I knew the walkers here should be put down.

Walking around the barn to see the securities of it I noticed that they locked it up pretty tight, but if the walkers pushed up against a wall to a certain degree they might as well just bust right out of it. I wondered who else knew about it. Maybe that's why Glenn was acting so jittery earlier today. Coming up with an idea to get at them all and not have to worry about it anymore I thought why not just go up in the loft and kill them all from above…but that wouldn't be right. Hershel would kick us out right after Patricia found them all dead when serving the bastards another poor chicken.

Then I began to think of something more crafty and creative. As I walked around the perimeter of the barn I stroked my fingers across the wooden boards holding the barn together and thought about pulling out the nails just enough for one walker to bump up against it and have the whole wall come down. I could just make it appear as an accident.

After debating this I agreed to my plan. I would have to tell at least a few people though so they would have my back when they all came running out.

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	14. Barn-ageddon

**Thank you for the reviews! So…will Daisy tell someone in the group about the walkers in the barn? Read on to find out! By the way, I'm going to start thanking everyone (with their username) who reviews my story and when I finish it I will make sure to include an acknowledgments page and include everyone who reviewed, followed and included my story in their favorites. So thank you to and SnowWhite7210 for reviewing. **

** SnowWhite7210: Thank you for pointing out those two mishaps in chapter one! I changed them shortly after you reviewed. I wouldn't know if people from the South would say 'wicked' or not since I don't live down there (I would love to though! Planning on moving to Virginia soon). Again thank you very much and I like it when people point out mistakes like that, it helps me out a lot! Hope to hear more from you :-) **

_Flashback _

As spring approached and the day of mine and Lori's graduation drew closer, I lay awake at night, thinking about our life in Atlanta. "In exactly three months," I said to her, "we'll be living in Atlanta." The following week, I said, "In exactly two months and three weeks, we'll be living in Atlanta."

"Would you please shut up," she said.

"You're not nervous, are you?" I asked.

"What do you think?"

Lori was terrified. She was not sure what she was supposed to do once she got to Atlanta. That had always been the vaguest part of our escape plan. Back in the fall, I'd had no doubt that she could get a scholarship to one of the city's universities. She'd been a finalist for a National Merit Scholarship, but she'd had to hitchhike into Savannah to take the test, and she got rattled when the trucker who picked her up put the moves on her; she arrived nearly an hour late and botched the test.

I suggested that Lori apply to ACA (Atlanta College of Art). Lori put together a portfolio of her drawings and paintings, but just before the submissions deadline, she spilled a pot of coffee on them, which made Annabelle wonder aloud if Lori had a fear of success.

The Lori heard about a scholarship sponsored by a literary society for the student who created the best work of art inspired by one of the geniuses of the English language. She decided to make a clay bust of Shakespeare. She worked on it for a week, using a sharpened Popsicle stick to shape the slightly bulging eyes and the goatee and earring and longish hair. When it was finished, it looked exactly like Shakespeare.

That night we were all sitting at the drafting table watching Lori put the finishing touched on Shakespeare's hair when dad came home drunk. "That does indeed resemble old Billy," Dad said. "Only thing is, as I been telling you, he was a goddamn fake."

For years, every time we brought out Shakespeare's plays, Dad would carry on about how they'd been written not by William Shakespeare of Avon but by a bunch of people, including someone named the Earl of Oxford, because no single person in Elizabethan England could have had Shakespeare's thirty-thousand-word vocabulary. All this bunk about little Billy Shakespeare, Dad would say, the great genius despite his grammar-school education, his small Latin and less Greek, was a lot of sentimental mythology.

"You're helping perpetuate this fraud," he told Lori.

"Dad, it's just a bust," Lori said.

"That's the problem," Dad said.

He studied the sculpture, then suddenly reached over and smeared off Shakespeare's mouth with his thumb.

"What the hell are you doing?" Lori cried out.

"It's not longer _just_ a bust," Dad said. "Now it has symbolic value. You can call it _Mute Bard_."

"I spent days on that," Lori shouted. "And you've ruined it!"

"I elevated it," Dad said. He told Lori he would help her write a paper that would demonstrate that Shakespeare's plays had multiple authors, like Rembrandt's paintings. "By God, you'll set the literary world on edge," he said.

"I don't want to set the world on edge!" Lori screamed. "I just want to win a stupid little scholarship!"

"Goddammit, you're in a horse race, but you're thinking like a sheep," Dad said. "Sheep don't win horse races."

XXXXX

Lori didn't have the spirit to rework the bust. The next day she smushed the clay into a big glob and left it on the drafting table. I told Lori that if she hadn't been accepted into an art school by the time she graduated, she should go to Atlanta anyway. She could support herself with the money we'd save up until she found a job, and then she could apply to a school. That became our new plan.

Everyone was mad at Dad, which gave him a case of the sulks. He said he didn't know why he even bothered to come home anymore, since he no longer got the slightest bit of appreciation for his ideas. He insisted he wasn't trying to keep Lori from leaving for Atlanta, but if she had the sense that God gave a goose, she would stay put. "Atlanta is a sorry-ass sinkhole," he said more than once, "filled with faggots and rapists." She'd get mugged and find herself on the streets, he warned, forced into prostitution and winding up a drug addict like all those runaway teenagers. "I'm only telling you this because I love you," he said. "And I don't want to see you hurt."

In May I was called down to the office to talk to my counselor Mrs. Bryan. When I got there she looked up at me with giddy eyes as I sat down and said, "I have very good news, Daisy!"

Looking at the woman I was a bit nervous from her overly-excited expression as she cheered, "You're going to be Valedictorian!"

I probably had the dumbest, most blanked out expression one could ever had as I asked, "What?"

She clapped her hands a bit and said, "I know this is a lot to take in, but Daisy, I'm so proud of you! Have you thought of what college you want to go to?"

A small smile crept up on my face and hers got even wider when she saw it and I murmured, "Well I was thinking about going to Emory."

Her eyes widened almost in admiration as she said, "I heard that's a very good school. Well now they'll _have_ to accept you."

Mrs. Bryan went on to explain that I had to write a speech for this year's graduating class and as she spoke all I could think about was Lori and all her hard work. She's actually eighteen and _I'm_ the one that's Valedictorian…

As I walked out of Mrs. Bryan's office I couldn't help it but to feel as if I didn't deserve being Valedictorian at all.

When I came home that day finally after getting out of a babysitting job I went into the bedroom to stash a few bucks in Oz. The pig was not on the old sewing machine. I began looking through all the junk in the bedroom and finally found Oz on the floor. Someone had slashed him apart with a knife and stolen all the money.

I knew it was Dad, but at the same time, I couldn't believe he'd stoop this low. Lori obviously didn't know yet. She was in the living room humming away as she worked on a poster. My first impulse was to hide Oz. I had this wild thought that I could somehow replace the money before Lori discovered it was missing. But I knew how ridiculous that was; three of us had spent the better part of a year accumulating the money. It would be impossible for me to replace it in the month before Lori and I graduated.

I went into the living room and stood beside her, trying to think of what to say. She was working on a poster that said 'Tammy!' in Day-Glo colors. After a moment, she looked up. "What?" she asked.

Lori could tell by my face that something was wrong. She stood up so abruptly she knocked over a bottle of india ink, and ran into the bedroom. I braced myself, expecting to hear a scream, but there was only silence and then a small, broken whimpering.

XXXXX

I didn't bother telling her about me being Valedictorian and all because I thought what was the point of it if I wasn't ensured a scholarship yet? Lori stayed up all night to confront Dad, but he didn't come home. She skipped school the following day in case he returned, but Dad was AWOL for three days before we heard him climbing the rickety staircase to the porch.

"You bastard!" Lori shouted. "You stole our money!"

"What the goddamn hell are you talking about?" Dad asked. "And watch your language." He leaned against the door and lit a cigarette.

Lori held up the slashed pig and threw it as hard as she could at Dad, but it was empty and nearly weightless. It struck his shoulder lightly, then bounced to the floor. He bent down carefully, as if the floor beneath him could shift at any moment, picked up our ravaged piggy bank, turned it over in his hands. "Someone sure as hell gutted old Oz, didn't they?" He turned to me. "Daisy, do you know what happened?"

He was actually half grinning at me. After the whipping, Dad had jacked up the charm with me, and even though I was planning to leave, he could make me laugh when he tried, and he still considered me an ally. But now I wanted to knock him over the head. "You took our money," I said. "That's what happened."

"Well, don't that beat all," Dad said. He started going on about how a man comes home from slaying dragons, trying to keep his family safe, and all he wants in return for his toil and sacrifice is a little love and respect, but it seemed these days that was just too damn much to ask for. He said he didn't take our Atlanta money, but if Lori was hell-bent on living in that cesspool, he'd finance her trip himself.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a few wadded dollar bills. We just stared at him, so he let the crumpled money fall to the floor. "Suit yourself," he said.

"Why are you doing this to us, Dad?" I asked. "Why?"

His face tightened with anger, and then he staggered to the sofa bed and passed out.

"We'll never get out of here," Lori kept saying. "We'll never get out of here."

"We will," I said. "I swear it." I believed we would. Because I knew that if Lori never got out of the Tracks, neither would I.

XXXXX

I went back to G.C. Murphy the next day and stared at the shelf of piggy banks. They were all either plastic or porcelain or glass, easily broken. I studied a collection of metal boxes with locks and keys. The hinges were too flimsy. Dad could pry them apart. I bought a blue change purse. I wore it on a belt under my clothes at all times. When it got too full, I put the money in a sock that I hid in a hole in the wall below my bunk.

We started saving again, but Lori felt too defeated to paint much, and the money didn't come as quickly. In the second week of May, we had only $37.20 in the sock. Then one of the women I'd been babysitting for, a teacher named Mrs. Sanders, told me she and her family were moving back to their hometown in Virginia and asked if I wanted to spend the summer with them there. If I came along and helped look after her two toddlers, she said she'd pay me two hundred dollars at the end of the summer and by me a bus ticket back to the Tracks.

I thought about her offer. "Take Lori instead of me," I said. "And at the end of the summer, buy her a bus ticket to Atlanta."

Mrs. Sanders agreed.

XXXXX

Two weeks before school ended I was working on my graduation speech when Annabelle came in and handed me a letter that was in the mail. She didn't bother to see what it was since I was getting college applications from basically everywhere. It said it was from Quest Bridge, wherever that was, but when I opened it my eyes widened and my hands started to shake…it was a scholarship to Emory.

_Present Day _

We all sat around the fire eating our breakfast, when Glenn finally spoke up. I knew what he was going to say. "Um, guys, so…the barn is full of walkers." Everyone looked up at him in surprise, but I looked down at the ground, scraping at the ground lazily with one of my knives.

Glenn looked at me for a moment and so did Dale, but then I got up and asked, "Want to go check it out or what?"

When we got to the barn Shane looked in the crack of the barn door until a walker appeared in front of him and he walked back to Rick angry asking, "Are you telling me you're alright with this?"

"No, I'm not," Rick spat back angrily, "We're guests here, this isn't or land."

Shane ran his hand over his head and said back just as angrily, "God, this is our lives."

Annabelle slipped her fingers into mine as she looked on at the scenario…sometimes it scared me how quiet she is.

"Guy's, we can't just sweep this under the rug," Andrea argued.

Dale shook his head, "It ain't right…"

"We gotta go in there or make things right or we leave," _Amen brotha, _I agreed, "I know we've been planning on Fort Benning for a long time, but-."

"We can't go!" Rick interrupted him.

Shane furrowed his brows and him and I asked at the same time, "Why?!" I've been running for so long, why stop now? I felt comfortable living the nomadic life and if these walkers weren't going down…I'm seriously thinking about leaving.

Carol shot me and Shane a look, okay, I'll admit she shot _me _a look and said, "Because my daughter's still out there."

I gave her a sympathetic look and nodded. "Can't we just make it look like and accident…I mean if we _do _decide to kill them all. Then Hershel won't kick us out because it was an accident…" I drifted off looking at the barn as Annabelle squeezed my hand a bit harder and Daryl raised his brow.

"And how do we do that?" Shane asked, sounding just a little bit interested.

Shrugging, still looking at the barn I said, "Perhaps a few boards give way…and…bang. They all come pouring out and we have nothing to do, but to defend ourselves, so we kill them all," I looked at Shane, "It's better than just bursting down the doors or going in there and creating a huge massacre out of anger and making it look like we're going against Hershel's way. It'll look…better."

Andrea nodded as if she were agreeing with me and Dale was even a bit convinced, but of course, as Dale always does, he questions, "Hershel sees those things in there as people, sick people, his wife and his step-son."

"You knew?" Rick asked and he looked at me questioningly too.

I stepped back a bit and Daryl asked from behind me as they argued, "So you've had a lot of time to figure this all out, huh?"

"I found out yesterday," I said.

Shane shouted in anger and soon the barn came alive with the familiar growls and moan of the dead as they banged against the door of the barn with their fingers slipping through the cracks, scraping against the boards with a deadly grip.

XXXXX

Walking to the barn to meet Daryl to go search a bit more of the grid he stormed out of the barn angrily and murmured rather loudly, "Stupid bitch."

He walked past me and I looked inside the barn only to see Carol standing there helplessly with a few tears running down her face. I walked over to her and touched her arm trying to make her feel alright as I asked, "What's wrong?"

She leaned away from me a bit and wiped her tears away and said, "Nothing," looking down at the floor, but then she looked up at me and confessed, "Daryl just snapped at me. He wanted to go out looking for Sophia. I told him he shouldn't because of him still healing and told him we may never find her…"

My shoulders slumped a bit in the lost effort and I murmured, "I'll talk to him. He just wants to find her…he hates it when he's trackin' skills don't find somethin' almost immediately…" I looked past her a bit and she walked away from me.

She said with a cringe in her voice, "What do you know about him? You've only been with us for a few weeks."

That made me a bit pissed and I turned around as she stormed off and said, "Excuse me Carol, but I've known Daryl my whole life, since we were kids. I've tried to make things right with you when I looked for your daughter," my voice cracked a bit as I tried so hard to get her to understand; "I know that you picked up the picture at CDC. Shane cornered me and shoved it into my face, accusing me of murder at least once or twice already and I don't blame you for thinking of me as some piece trash that somehow got placed into your group, but what I did was out of self-defense. Every day we kill out of self-defense…" my throat tightened up as if I were about to cry in front of this woman and she looked sorry. I choked as I said silently, "I'm sorry for whatever I've done to you, Carol…I'll tell you everything if it'll make you stop hating me."

Carol's eyes widened and she frowned. She walked over to me and it was as if her motherly instincts just turned on or something because she hugged me, I was a bit surprised, but I eventually hugged her back. Carol said she was sorry over and over again and I did what I told her I would do…I told her what happened and why I started running. I told her how Lori died and how I killed the man who did that to her. I pressed my wrists into my eyes to stop the tears from flowing a few times…just telling someone everything that happened, getting it off of my chest…it felt amazing, but at the same time it felt sickening. Carol wiped I few tears away too and said she was sorry and that she understood and that now she knows why Daryl and I are close. She promised not to tell anyone else and that it was my story to tell. I believed her too.

XXXXX

Carol left after a while and when I got out of the stables myself I saw Shane outside of the barn filled with walkers stroking the side of it and looking up at its structure like I did the other day.

He turned towards me and raised a brow, "Do you think you're plan will work? If we really do take down a side of the barn do you think Hershel will take it as an accident?"

A bit nervous that Shane was actually thinking about my plan, I shrugged, "Maybe…one can never be sure."

Shane nodded as if he took my answer and when I was about to walk away he just came out and asked, "So…you screwin' Daryl yet?"

My whole body tensed up as I turned on my heel and said in a surprisingly poise manner, "No, are you?" Did Shane really think I was about to openly talk to him about my sex life?

He put his hands on his belt and chuckled at that. After that I went back to the main camp and sat back on a chair only to be brought back up again when Shane came up from behind me. Shane put his hand on my shoulder and I turned around quickly and stood up as he asked, "You've got guns, right?" I nodded and I saw that he was upset about something as he shot back, "Well I need them and you don't get to ask why."

Crossing my arms over my chest and putting my weight on my left leg I said, "Well, Hoss," _hm, I like that nickname for him, _I thought, remembering the show _Bonanza, _which played on one of the three channels we had on our lame ass TV"seeing as they are _my _guns, I do get to ask why."

Shane shook his head and walked past me, heading for my truck, "No, you don't."

This guy was really pissing me off and I grabbed his arm and got in front of him, "Yes I do. Watch…" I pretended to clear my throat, "why?"

He chuckled again and said, "Damn, you are a piece of work."

I rolled my eyes and said, "Seriously? You're the one that's walking around like a crazy person. Ever think that I may give you my guns if you asked politely and told me what you needed them for?"

Grimacing, he calmed down a bit and looked me in the eyes, "Dale took the guns from the RV and I really don't wanna waste my time lookin' for a crazy and delusional old man who thinks he knows everything about everyone. You get where I'm comin' from, Thelma?"

Oh, great, now he has a nickname for me too. "You didn't answer my question, Shane. _What_ do you need them for?"

"You wanna kill those walkers, right, and keep Anna safe?" I nodded as he brought up Anna and he went on, "We're going to kill them all, tonight, I'm plannin'. Or maybe earlier."

Personally, I think Shane is a bit of a pistol toad, but he was making sense. He took a step closer to me and looked down at me as he begged, "Can I please have 'em?" Wow, who would've thought? Shane Walsh said please…for guns.

I turned to my truck, but when I grabbed the gun bag I didn't hand it to him and instead flung it over my shoulder and walked to where everyone was sitting on the front porch. I could over hear them all discussing as to where we all were and when Shane and I came to view Daryl looked at us said, "Here we go...what's all this?"

I pulled out a Harrington & Richardson Pardner Pump Contact shotgun and handed it to Daryl. Shane looked at him and nodded, "Are you with us?" Daryl looked at me for a moment and nodded as Shane went on and said, "Time to start growin' up!" He looked to Andrea and asked, "Do you got yours?"

She nodded and looked a bit confused and asked, "Where's Dale?"

"He's on his way," Shane said, although I know he had no clue if Dale was safe or not.

I then handed T-Dog a Colt Python revolver and he took it questioningly, "I thought we couldn't carry 'em."

"We can and we have to," Shane argued, "Alright, its one thing sittin' around here pickin' daisies when we thought this place was supposed to be safe, but now we know it ain't."

I took out a Remington 700 VLS rifle and held it out to Glenn. He looked up at me uncertainly, but when he saw that I only meant it for the safety of others, he took it willingly.

Shane dug into my bag and pulled out my Smith & Wesson Model 586 and held it out to Maggie, "Can you shoot?"

"Will you stop this? If you hand out these guns, my dad will make you leave by tonight," she threatened.

Carl stepped up, "We can't leave."

Lori came out of the house and I know this may seem strange, but she did somehow remind me of my deceased sister. "What is this?" she asked.

"We ain't leavin' alright? Now look, Hershel, he's just gonna have to understand, okay? He'll…well he's gonna have to," Shane dug his hand into my bag and pulled me back slightly.

"What the hell man?" I hissed.

He knelt down to Carl and said, "We're gonna find Sophia, am I right?" He handed Carl my Glock 17 pistol and said quietly, "Okay, now I want you to take this, you take this and you keep your mother safe. You'll do whatever it takes, you know how, now go on and take it."

I walked up from behind him and grabbed the pistol out of his hand and said, "No way."

Lori nodded in respect to me, but then got a furious look on her face when she looked at Shane, "Rick said no guns. This is not your call. This is not your decision to make."

"Oh shit," T-Dog murmured. I turned around only to see Rick, Hershel and Jimmy bringing in two walkers on leash-like poles.

Shane was the first to react and he ran towards them in anger. I looked at Anna for a moment and we were the last ones to chase after them as I set my bag of guns down on the front porch.

"Is this what you do?!" Shane yelled at them.

Rick glared at him, "Shane just back off!"

Hershel looked at us all and asked, "Why do your people have guns?" The way he said 'your people'…it made me feel sick.

"Are you kiddin' me?!" Shane yelled and even I thought he was being a bit dramatic, "You see?! You see what you're holdin' on to?"

"I _do_ see who I'm holding on to," Hershel went against Shane as he struggled with the walker.

Shane shook his head, "Not me."

Rick struggled, "Lemme do this and we'll talk."

"What you wanna talk about, Rick?" Shane said, disgusted, "These things ain't sick! They aren't people! They're dead! They ain't feel nothin' because you know all they do? They kill! They're the things that killed Amy. They killed Otis and they're going to kill all of us if we don't do nothin' about it."

I'm glad Shane had his _own _gun and not one of mine. I didn't feel too bad about giving everyone else a gun, but Shane…if I gave him one I would probably end up regretting it.

Shane circled around them, but then finally stopped and said, "Hey Hershel, man, lemme ask you somethin'. Can a living and breathing person, can they walk away from this?" he pulled out his gun and shot the female walker who was in a white yet bloody sun dress in the chest three times, "Can a person survive three rounds in the chest? Someone who is alive, can they just take that?" he pointed at the walkers and went on, "Why is it still comin'?" He then shot it twice more, "That's its heart and its lungs. Why is it still comin'?" Shane shot it two more times.

"Shane, enough!" Rick protested, but I didn't know why he even bothered. I had a feeling Rick knew deep down inside that Hershel and him were in the wrong.

Shane came up to the walker and said, "Yeah, you're right man, that is enough," and he finally shot the walker in the head.

For a moment I felt sorry for Hershel and his people and Andrea. Shane was terrorizing them. Although what he was saying was true he didn't have to go this far and make such a horrifying deal out of it. The man is nuts.

"Enough riskin' our lives," Shane went on, "Enough lookin' for a little girl whose _gone,_" he said, striking a look at Carol. She stepped back in anguish and I ran over to her and rested a hand on her arm. "Enough livin' next to a barn that's filled with things that are trying to kill us, enough! Rick, it ain't like it was before," he turned to the rest of us, "Now if you all want to live, if you want to survive, you've gotta fight for it! Let's fight! Right here, right now." He ran towards the barn and I really thought he was going ape-shit crazy. Shane Walsh was loco.

Rick begged Hershel to get out of his somewhat cationic state and hold the walker he had on the leash, but Hershel didn't listen as he watched in horror as Shane busted the barn door open. And soon enough they all came pouring out.

Taking out my Beretta 92FS and shot down a few walkers here and there, but looking down at Hershel I felt the worst guilt in the world and I soon put my gun down.

Finally it was over. Hershel and his people were all crying and I started to walk back to the barn. Dale came back, realizing he was too late. But then I heard it, the soft moan of one more walker. I looked behind me and there she was. Sophia…

Carol sobbed out for her daughter and ran towards her, but Daryl stopped her and Annabelle cried silently. Anna pushed her face into my shirt and cried, getting it all wet, but I didn't care. All this time…Sophia was in the barn.

Even Shane looked saddened and I held Anna close to me so she couldn't see Rick pull out his gun and shoot the girl we've been looking for right in the head.

**Sorry, I know, cliffhangers are annoying, but Daisy's story will come out with time...and if you're wondering, the reason for Annabelle being so quiet will be revealed too. Please review for more chapters :-) **


	15. Existential Doom

**Thank you all for reviewing! And I'm still enjoying your long Carol hater reviews, mrskaz453. If you read this please review. I don't mind if it's short or anything I just want to know you're all still interested. I got a lot of followers and favs after the last chapter and I'm glad to see everyone wants to read more :-) love you all! **

_Flashback _

I walked up to the front podium with my graduation cap on my head and twiddled my thumbs as I spoke rather, surprisingly, clear, "There is a story of a young, but earnest Zen student who approached his teacher, and asked the Master, "If I work very hard and diligently, how long will it take for me to find Zen?" The Master thought about this, then replied, "Ten years...?" The student then said, "But what if I work very, very hard and really apply myself to learn fast — How long then?" Replied the Master, "Well, twenty years." "But, if I really, really work at it, how long then?" asked the student. "Thirty years," replied the Master. "But, I do not understand," said the disappointed student. "At each time that I say I will work harder, you say it will take me longer. Why do you say that?" Replied the Master, "When you have one eye on the goal, you only have one eye on the path.

"This is the dilemma I've faced within the American education system. We are so focused on a goal, whether it be passing a test, or graduating as first in the class. However, in this way, we do not really learn. We do whatever it takes to achieve our original objective.

"Some of you may be thinking, "Well, if you pass a test, or become valedictorian, didn't you learn something?" Well, yes, you learned something, but not all that you could have. Perhaps, you only learned how to memorize names, places, and dates to later on forget in order to clear your mind for the next test. School is not all that it can be. Right now, it is a place for most people to determine that their goal is to get out as soon as possible.

I am now accomplishing that goal. I am graduating. I should look at this as a positive experience, especially being at the top of my class. However, in retrospect, I cannot say that I am any more intelligent than my peers. I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I am told and working the system. Yet, here I stand, and I am supposed to be proud that I have completed this period of training. I will leave in the fall to go on to the next phase expected of me, in order to receive a paper document that certifies that I am capable of work. But I contest that I am a human being, a thinker, an adventurer – not a worker. A worker is someone who is trapped within repetition – a slave of the system set up before him. But now, I have successfully shown that I was the best slave. I did what I was told to the extreme. While others sat in class and doodled to later become great artists, I sat in class to take notes and become a great test-taker. While others would come to class without their homework done because they were reading about an interest of theirs, I never missed an assignment. While others were creating music and writing lyrics, I decided to do extra credit, even though I never needed it. So, I wonder, why did I even want this position? Sure, I earned it, but what will come of it? When I leave educational institutionalism, will I be successful or forever lost? I have no clue about what I want to do with my life; I have no interests because I saw every subject of study as work, and I excelled at every subject just for the purpose of excelling, not learning. And quite frankly, now I'm scared." All of this made the teachers a bit uncomfortable, but I then went on to say that we are all valedictorians in our own way and that we shouldn't need a piece of paper to prove it. I said farewell to my peers and got _my _diploma and walked out of the school to get Lori ready to leave for the summer.

XXXXX

Low-lying pewter-colored clouds rested on the mountaintops the morning of Lori's departure. They were there most mornings, and when I noticed them, they reminded me of how isolated and forgotten the town was, a sad, lost place adrift in the clouds. The clouds usually burned away by midmorning, when the sun climbed above the steep hills, but some days, like the one Lori left, they clung to the mountains, and a fine mist formed in the valley that turned you hair and face damp.

When the Sanders family pulled up in their station wagon, Lori was ready. She packed her clothes, her favourite books, and her art supplies in a single cardboard box. She hugged all of us except Dad—she had refused to speak a word to him since he plundered Oz—promised to write, and climbed into the station wagon.

We all stood watching as the car disappeared down the street. Lori never once looked back. I took that as a good sign. When I climbed the staircase to the house, Dad was standing on the porch, smoking a cigarette.

"This family is falling apart," he said.

"It sure is," I told him.

_Present Day _

"Don't look, don't look," Daryl said to Carol, but of course she did, I would. Finally she pulled away from him and ran back to the camp.

All of the Greene's were crying and all I could do was watch. At these moments I didn't know what to do. When people are crying...I can't do anything except watch. Beth ran over to who I'm assuming was her mother. She pushed a body off of her and cried over the body, but then I hear the loud cry of the walker and then everything turns back on and I forget about the crying. I run over to Beth as fast as I can and pry her from the needy hands of her mother who now wants nothing but death and Beth's flesh. Beth screams and cries and scrambles up from the ground and I'm glad I acted as fast as I did. Everyone else ran over and Patricia and Maggie took Beth and held her as they all cried together for the ones lost.

Andrea finished the job with a scythe to the walker's head. That's when _I _walked away. I had enough. The Greene family walked in front of me back to their home as Shane started to accuse Hershel of knowing Sophia's whereabouts.

Hershel cried and said that he didn't know and that maybe Otis put her in the barn before he died.

"Do you think I believe that? Do I look like an idiot to you?" Shane yelled he got up to Hershel and I just wanted to slap him right then and there, but Maggie got to him before I did. Kudos to her.

After they went inside and Hershel told us to get off his land I knew it was done and over with. Grabbing Annabelle's hand I pulled her to the car as Rick and Shane fought.

"Are we really going to leave?" Anna asked.

We got to my truck before I answered her, "If his decision doesn't change by tonight, yes, we are."

I started to roll up my sleeping bag that was on the bed and pushed it to the corner. "Are the other going to come with us too?" she asked.

"If we leave we're not leavin' with them," I said rather harshly, mainly thinking of Shane and Carol when I said it.

Anna looked at me with a scared look on her face and asked, "Where are we gonna go?"

"I don't know," I said, hopping out of the back of the truck with my gun bag to retrieve the ones I gave the others, "Stay at the truck, Anna. I don't want you talkin' to anybody, you hear?"

"Alright," she said obediently and took my place in the bed.

Through the window of the RV I could see Daryl and Carol and I didn't bother going in asking if she was alright or anything. I didn't bother to just peek inside and see if he had my gun. When Anna and I leave tonight, which I know we will, I'll be happy. Daryl can comfort Carol and I won't have to worry about her anymore. They'll both be fine and I'll just be someone who was there for a short period of time.

I walked over to his tent instead and took my shotgun off of his bed and threw it in the back of my bag and walked out. It was done.

I then turned looking for T-Dog. In the distance at the front of the barn I could see them all standing there. I started walking towards them and Andrea looked up at me, "What do you think about a memorial service?"

I shrugged, "Sure, that's fine," I turned to T-Dog and without asking for it he handed me my revolver and I put it in my bag. "Just so you know," I turned to Rick, "unless you change Hershel's mind about us leavin', Annabelle and I will be goin' tonight," Andrea was about to say something, but I just cut her off, I really didn't want anyone wavering my decision, "Do you want me to get a fire started for these things or what?"

"Wait, Hershel told for us to leave?" Andrea asked.

"What did you think he was goin' to do, Andrea? Give us all a Coke and say cheers?" I asked sarcastically.

Shane looked up at me and said, "You ain't leavin'."

I turned to him, "Well that's not your decision to make now is it, Hoss? Just get your truck and take the walkers we ain't buryin' out to the edge of the property. We need to burn 'em before sunset," I turned to Andrea again, "Does he have any shovels in there? Let's get this show on the road."

Shane turned without anymore prying to go get his truck and Andrea handed me a shovel.

Lori looked at me for a moment and then said, "Three graves, under that tree over there," she pointed to an oak tree close to the house.

I nodded and started walking towards it, so did T-Dog and Andrea.

"Wait, Daisy!" Rick called from behind me.

Turning around, I started walking towards him while Lori went to the RV. "What?"

He was in front of me when he whispered, "I-I...I need you to stay with us, Daisy."

"Why?" I asked.

"Lori needs you...she's pregnant," he whispered.

Now that changed everything, "How long has she been pregnant?" I asked, "When did she find out? She's eating properly, right?" Lori was so skinny and the way she's been acting I should've known. I knew the real reason why Rick didn't want to leave Hershel's now.

"She's been pregnant for a while...and yes, she's eating properly. So are you going to stay?" he asked, looking up at me.

"Maybe..." I said, unsure of myself, "But I'm tellin' you, you need to make it up to Hershel somehow. Even if he doesn't change his mind, just make sure we leave nicely."

XXXXX

We had the funeral without Carol and I felt sympathy for the woman, but there was something about her that still made me unsure of myself.

Andrea and I grabbed a walker and started walking over to Shane's truck.

"A few more trips," Rick said, walking towards us.

"We got lucky," Andrea said as we threw the walker into the bed of the truck, "'Cause if we brought in anymore we could've been overrun."

I nod, "I feel bad for Hershel and his family, but I'm glad we took care of it."

"Good thing Shane did what he did when he did," T-Dog said.

Dale looked at us with furrowed brows, "You can't tell me this was right," he said in a somewhat disgusted tone.

"It wasn't," Rick reassured him, "It'll cost us with Hershel."

Andrea looked at him, "He's grieving, he'll come around. We had no choice. You see I shot too, this wasn't all Shane." She looked between all of us and I knew it wasn't just him too. I'm the one that handed out the guns. I wanted the walkers in the barn to be dead probably as much as Shane wanted to, but I didn't act like he did.

"Look I got no qualms about it," T-Dog said, "Walkers in my backyard?" he shook his head, "Ain't happenin'."

Dale looked at him and fought for what he said, "I'm not saying we shouldn't have taken care of the problem, but creating a panic to-."

"There's no point arguing about it," Lori said with her arms crossed around her chest, "It's done. There's nothing we can do about it." I couldn't help looking at her for a moment and looking down at her stomach. A baby? Now? In an apocalypse? Lori was brave and I knew she would do anything to protect the people she loved and at this point I decided to stay. I needed to help her. I had to. I've helped four women so far with giving birth to their child. One at Woodbury and three others before the world started going to hell. I guess you could say I was experienced on the matter and I'm sure Hershel was too, but if we were going to be leaving, Lori needed me.

T-Dog nodded, "Better get a move on." He got in the driver's seat and Andrea sat in the back. I decided to stay here this time. Andrea and T-Dog would be alright.

As I walked back to my truck I could see Glenn running from the house, "Daisy!" he called. Glenn looked in a panic and I ran towards him. When we got close to each other he said, "It's Beth. She fainted."

I ran inside the house and Glenn led me to Beth's room where she laid in her bed with her eyes closed. "What happened?" I asked. Sitting next to her and feeling her forehead and cheeks, "She has a fever and seems to be in shock."

"We were just talkin' she was doin' the dishes and then she just fainted," Maggie cried.

Looking up at her I asked, "Where's Hershel?"

"We can't find him anywhere," Glenn said with his hands crossed over his chest.

I nodded and said to Maggie, "Can you go get me some cold clothes and maybe some ice packs if you have any. The heat may have been the problem, but I think it's mostly shock. We need to snap her out of it and fast before this goes on for too long."

As I took care of Beth, Rick decided to go after Hershel with Glenn. They concluded that he was at the bar in town and Maggie wasn't too happy with Glenn going and Lori wasn't happy with Rick going, but I think we all knew that we needed Hershel and we needed to save him.

I placed the clothes underneath Beth's arms, on her feet and then on her head and I could feel her fever go down a lot when I touched her feet.

When I was done I heard someone come in. I turned around only to see Daryl. "How is she?" he asked, looking at her as a way of starting conversation. I could tell he had something on his mind and from what I could tell, it isn't good.

"Her fever went down by a lot…how's Carol?" I asked uneasily, looking at him from the corner of my eye.

Daryl sat down on a chair in the corner, "That's what I came here to talk to you about…and Shane."

I put my hand together nervously and looked at him and asked, "What about 'em?"

"When I was walking back to camp I saw Shane and Carol together, talking. I was about to just pass by until I heard your name. Then I started to listen in on their conversation…Carol told Shane about what you did, Daisy. She told him you killed someone…" his voice was sad and serious and when he said that I could feel the blood drain from my face and I started to breathe heavily.

I shook my head, "No, dear God, no. This can't be happenin'. Oh God, no." My hands started to shake and I stood up. "I have to leave. I have to get out of here. I need to take Annabelle as far away from here as possible," I started pacing back and forth from one side of the room to the other. If Shane knew he wouldn't let it slide. He would kill me just like he did with all of those walkers. No mercy. Who knows what he would do to Anna. Would he hurt her? Would he dump her off in the middle of nowhere?

I ran my fingers through my hair and stopped, "Right now. We have to go, right now." Before I could make my way to the door Daryl grabbed my arms and turned me around.

"You ain't goin' nowhere, ya hear? I won't let Shane do anythin' to you. If he touches you I'll kill 'em. He can't hurt you when I'm still breathin'. And Annabelle too…I won't let anyone lay a finger on the both of ya," I kept shaking my head.

I cried, "We have to Daryl. Don't you understand? Did you see what he did to those walkers?! He didn't listen to Hershel! He showed no sympathy! Nothing!"

"You're not leaving me again, Daisy Jackson. Not like last time. You're not leaving me. Not again. Every time I try to help you…you push me away," he sighed, looking more serious than I've ever seen him before.

I bit my bottom lip, "I left you that night for good reasons. If I let you stay and help me…you could've been faced with a judge and jury like I was, or maybe worse, locked up in prison with me."

I remember pushing him out the front door of our house telling him to go first thing in the morning on a hunting trip with his Merle and his father. To go as far away as possible and not tell anyone of what he saw if questioned. I told him not to call the police and not to help me.

He put his hands on my face and stroked my cheeks with his thumbs, "You're not leavin'…" he said.

I heard a small gasp and turned around to see Beth's eyes open, but she didn't move except the slow rise and fall of her chest. She was in a catatonic state. I placed a pillow underneath her feet and started rubbing her hands, murmuring over and over again softly, "It's alright, Beth, everything is going to be alright."

I looked up at Daryl and I didn't know what to do. I hated these moments. When I wanted to leave so badly, but I knew I would feel as guilty as ever if I actually did. For now I had to stay. "Can you get Maggie and Patricia? If she's goin' to wake up to anyone it's goin' to be them." He nodded and went out to go get them.

Maggie and Patricia came in with Andrea, Jimmy and Lori, but not Daryl.

Lori looked at Maggie and Patricia as they comforted Beth and then walked out. Peaking out through the window I could see her walk to her car and I ran out. Just when she got in I reached her, a bit out of breath. She rolled down the window and I asked, "Where ya goin'?"

"To go get Rick," she said honestly, looking down at her hands as if she were in the wrong.

I shook my head, "Not alone. Not in the condition you're in."

She looked up at me and asked, "You know?"

I nodded, "Yes…Rick told me. I've decided to stay and help you. You need it."

Lori frowned, "You don't have to do anything for me, sweetie. You've already done enough for me and my family with Carl."

"I want to though," I reassure her, "Now how about you get out of the car and just stay here, alright?"

She hesitated for a moment, but finally nodded and got out of the car. I felt a small bit of accomplishment as she slammed the car door shut. But as I remembered the men back at the bar I couldn't help it but to feel as if our fate was catching up to us. I had a feeling that the gang was soon going to meet our existential doom.

**Please review for more chapters :-) I know that they keep on referencing to the murder and the flashbacks will start to pick up. **


	16. Fish Out of Water

**Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but this chapter took a lot of work since I'm trying to incorporate more Daryl/Daisy time, as halodoll89 put it (thanks for reviewing by the way!) Many thanks to mrskaz453, garikay, , daryldixons1fan and halodoll89 for reviewing and to anyone who put my story in their favorites or decided to follow it :-) **

** daryldixons1fan: I'm trying to finish season 2 and 3 as fast as possible, but since a lot happens, it takes time. And I would love to help you start a story! Make sure to get an account and PM me so we can make it happen :-D **

_Flashback _

Lori had been writing to us regularly from Atlanta. She loved it there. She was living in a hotel for women, working as a waitress in a German restaurant, and taking art classes and even fencing lessons. She'd met the most fascinating group of people, every one of them a weird genius. People in Atlanta loved art and music so much, she said, that artists sold paintings right on the sidewalk next to string quartets playing Mozart. She knew I'd love it once I got there. I knew it, too.

One day in late July, Daryl Dixon came knocking on my door. "I need help," he said, "Merle and I both need your help."

I scowled what would Merle Dixon possibly need my help with? "And what would that be?" I asked.

He licked his lips and said, "Merle busted up his leg pretty badly when riding. Getting ready for the state fair and all, but we already signed up. If we don't go into state fair we won't have enough money for to last us the winter. If you come in as Merle's replacement...I can't even describe how thankful I would be." Daryl looked so sincere and needy, I was willing to help him.

"What competitions did Merle sign up for?" I asked.

"One reigning competition, eight barrel races and four jumping competitions," he thought carefully.

Crossing my arms over my chest I asked, "And what do I get from this?"

"Free food for you and Anna for the rest of the summer and twenty-five percent of the money you win," he said, rather sure of himself. "That's what Merle said."

I nodded and asked, "When does it start?"

"Exactly a week from today. That'll be enough time for you to practice on his horse, right?" he asked cautiously.

"Probably," I said.

"So you're in?"

"I'm in."

XXXXX

For the next week Daryl would drive me and Annabelle down to Merle's friends barn where they boarded his horse, which he unfortunately named Cigarette. Daryl said just to call her Smokey which I gladly did. She was a beautiful horse and I can see why Merle gave her the original name since she was the color of cigarette ashes. Smokey has wild eyes but when I got on her, everything went smoothly. I practiced reining her and Daryl said if I could master that with her within the week everything would probably go well. The reining competition was the first to come on July 31st, but we would be camping at the fairgrounds a day prior from that.

I was pretty confident in myself and Smokey by the end of the week and Daryl thought we did great too. I just hope he didn't have poor judgment.

We rode in Merle's truck with all of our stuff in the bed and Smokey's trailer in the back. Merle was giving me a pep talk before entering and this was the first time he ever talked to me in this way…I cannot describe it, but it was somewhat more nice and sincere than all of the other times we've talked to each other. "Also," he said, "You're signing in as a boy."

All of us, Annabelle and me and even Daryl shot our heads up in shock, "What?!"

"What? Did you expect me to sign into a girl's competition? Naw, that's bullshit," Merle spat out his window and put another chew packet between his gum and lip.

Daryl threw his hands in the air, "What the hell are we goin' to do now, man?"

"I said I already signed her in," Merle spoke loudly now, "I've got her under the name of James Hastings. When we get there you're going to go into the back and get ready before we sign in and get our spot, alright?" He turned to me with raised brows.

I nodded in disappointment, "Alright…"

"Good," he huffed and turned the radio up.

When we got there I did exactly as he said. He pulled the truck over so I could hop out and get ready. Merle rolled his window down and handed me some tape. It took me awhile to figure out what the tape was for…"There are clothes in the back too," Merle added.

I got dressed into the high waist jeans that were loose at the crotch. Going into the large horse trailer to cover myself I took off my shirt and started taping down my not-large-enough-boobs-to-see-anyway as tight as they could go. I then buttoned up the black button down shirt up all the way and stuffed the ends of them into the jeans. I pulled up the collar all the way to hide the tiny hairs I had at the bottom of my hairline. Merle supplied me with a large buckled belt with man barrel racing on it. I then tied my hair up as high as it could go into a small bun and then placed his black cowboy hat on that had little white stones along the circumference of it. I put on Merle's black boots too.

I went up to Merle's window and asked, "What do you think?"

He took a puff of his cigarette and said, "I think I'm the best voice of reason there is. Now get in."

"Wait," Daryl hopped out of the truck and ran to the bed. He took a can of oil and rubbed his fingers along the sides of it. Daryl then came up close to me and said, "Stand still." With light strokes beneath my nose and some quick swipes along my face I looked like a boy with slight facial hair. Daryl looked down at me with a rather goofy grin on his face and then gestured to the truck. When we got in Merle started laughing and then handed me a package of chew which I put in between my gum and lip like he did and spat in the bucket like he did. Watching me only made him start laughing even harder. I scowled at him and Daryl both. They just said they were laughing at the change, but people meeting me for the first time obviously wouldn't think of the before and after, never seeing the before.

We entered the fair with ease and got our camping spot at the edge of the fair grounds. As we got our supplies out of the bed of the truck and started putting the tents up Merle said, "The first jumping show is tomorrow."

I nodded, "Alright."

"Remember," he said to both me and Daryl, "it would be at the Sutherland Livestock and Equine Area. If you forget that, you're screwed. I already paid the fifty dollar admissions so if you don't get first, second or third we lose all of it. If you get first we get a thousand, second we get five-hundred and third two-hundred and fifty."

The pressure was on.

XXXXX

We got up at six thirty the next morning. Merle made us all scrambled eggs which I was surprised at because I never pictured Merle as the cooking type, but they were wicked good. I downed it with a bottle of water and got ready for the day. Daryl got Smokey out of the horse trailer and got her ready while I got myself ready, looking presentable as a guy.

Smokey, Daryl and Annabelle and I got to the Sutherland Area like Merle said quickly found our way to the Dixie Reining arena. We signed in and I was scheduled for eight o'clock which was about an hour away. The barns at the fair where we kept Smokey during the day weren't as nice as Merle's friends or my grandmother's. They were dirtier from all of the horses and riders walking in. As Daryl and I got Smokey ready in her stall I was going to ask him why Merle decided not to come and sit with him and Annabelle for the competition, but then he quickly patted Smokey and said, "I'm goin' out to get somethin'. You two stay here."

I didn't bother asking him where he was going, but instead did what I was told. While Annabelle was feeding Smokey a carrot a tall man walked past the stall. "So you're the Slim Jim that took Merle's place in competition this summer, huh?"

I furrowed my brows and tried to keep my head down and my eyes covered by my hat as I started rubbing Smokey down again, "Yeah," I said in the best guy voice I could muster. I spat the chew out through the corner of my lip into the bucket in the corner like Merle did to play the part, "I am."

The man grimaced and chuckled. I noticed he had a golden tooth, "Well good luck." And with that he walked away.

"Jesus," I sighed. I turned to Annabelle, "I thought he had us."

Annabelle looked down at me and said more clearly than usual, "I'm scared."

I shook my head, "I'm not…so you shouldn't be either."

Daryl came back just as our turn came up. I pulled my hat down low as I got up on Smokey, scooped up the reins and tried not to pay attention to the hundreds of eyes trained on me as I rode her out into the ring.

Smokey snatched at the reins as we cantered toward the red-and-white poles and fences. "Steady," I whispered, holding my legs against her to maintain her bouncy stride but keeping a firm rein so that she wouldn't rush and flatten over the fence. Three yards away, I pushed my hands forward and let her take a fast, powerful stride before the jump. _Go girl! _I thought as Smokey launched into the air.

The next two fences flashed past, and then we were cantering toward the parallel bars. Smokey listened to me right until she took off, forming a beautiful rounded arc over the fence. I felt a thrill of delight as I turned her to face the upright. I relaxed a little as I judged the distance to their takeoff.

The next thing I knew, Smokey's nose was in the air and we were going too fast on the approach. I loosened my grip and legs a bit and when Smokey took the jump I closed my eyes and we were clearly on the other side, no fences knocked over. After that I made sure to focus one hundred and ten percent on getting over the remaining jumps. How could I be so stupid?

When I landed clear over the final fence, the crowd burst into applause. I looked down, making sure not to look up at anyone as Smokey cantered over to Daryl and Annabelle, who were waiting at the gate. As I got past I quickly got off of Smokey and started walking over to the stalls.

"You did great, Daisy!" Annabelle said happily, smiling as she took Smokey's reins from me and brought her into the stall.

I bit my bottom lip, "Really? I mean I went to fast on that one jump and I think Smokey was a bit shaky from it. Did you notice that?"

Annabelle shook her head, "Nope, not at all."

Daryl helped me take the saddle off of Smokey and he reassured me, "You did fine. If anythin' ya must've at least gotten second place. You were the fastest so far from what I've seen. So you'll get extra points for that along with the points ya got for clearing the ring without knockin' over anythin'."

I nod, only a tad reassured. We watched the rest of the men go and most of them seemed way older than me. At the end of the day they announced the winner of today's show and when they announced second place I was sure I lost, but finally the man holding the microphone said, "First place for today's show is James Hastings! Congratulations James! You can get your prize at the front office of the Equine station."

My mouth hung open and Anna jumped in happiness. "Well done Daisy," Daryl said.

Daryl went in to collect the money as Merle's brother and he seemed to talk cordially with the man behind the desk. Daryl came out with one-thousand dollars in cash which he split with me like he said he would and I couldn't believe I was holding this much money in my hands. I quickly shoved it in my back pocket and started to figure out where I could hide it when we got to camp, wondering if Merle was anything like my father when it came to money. As we walked to our camp it started to grow dark out and we were growing hungry from the long day of waiting and eating nothing, making sure to not waste money on fair food when Merle brought a few bags of food with him.

When we got there Merle had a fire going and four cans of beans over it on a little rack. We sat around the fire with him and with the chew still in his mouth he spat some out and asked, "So? What happened?"

Daryl grinned and turned to me, "Do you ever wonder why they say quitters never win if you're supposed to quit while you're ahead?"

I was confused by this at first and then I realized Daryl was just teasing Merle. "Stop givin' me bullshit, brother," Merle said angrily and turned to me, "Daisy what happened?"

Turning to Daryl I nodded with the same grin, "And also, how good can a bedtime story be if it's supposed to make you fall asleep?"

Merle was starting to get impatient, "God dammit, just tell me what the hell happened? Did you win?"

"Yes, she did," Annabelle said.

Merle smiled and howled happily and rather obnoxiously in enjoyment. People next to our camp told him to shut the hell up, "I knew it!" he said, "I knew when you came over here with those stupid grins you won!" After he stopped laughing he turned to Daryl, "So where's the money brother?"

Daryl took the wad of money out of his back pocket and handed it to Merle who said, "Seven fifty and like I promised," he turned to me, "you got your two fifty."

I nodded and I let out a sigh of relief. Merle wasn't as bad as I thought he was. He was nothing like my father. "Yeah, thank you," I said carefully.

He shrugged, "Why ya thankin' me? You earned it. I'm the one who should be thankin' you."

And with that we ate our dinner and went to bed.

XXXXX

The next week I won each jumping competition and got one thousand dollars just from that. Surprisingly no one suspected a thing and just thought it was pure luck for me. Well it wasn't like I won _everything, _because there were about sixteen other jumping shows that Merle didn't sign me up for, which I was thankful.

The week after that I got six seconds and two firsts on the barrel competitions, but Merle didn't mind the second places because he still got money in his pocket. After the second week in total I got two thousand and two hundred and fifty dollars. Merle and Daryl obviously got way more, but it kind of evened out when Merle had to pay weekly for staying at the fairgrounds and paying for food for all of us after the food he brought ran out.

Let me tell you, fair food tasted amazing. I know its all "unhealthy" and stuff, but damn it tasted good. Merle forbid me to go out of the campsite so each night Daryl and Annabelle would get something different. That was the beauty of it too. It wasn't like at home where Lori and I stuck to a budget and basically had the same thing every day. Thinking of home I often wondered how Dad was managing on his own. Knowing him he's probably doing fine. I mean he's never home anyways. Always at the bar and he was probably winning money just like we were with his pool games.

On the last week of the summer I got third place in the reigning competition which I knew was my weakest spot from the very beginning of training. I only got sixty-two dollars and fifty cents from it. So on the last day we were all sitting in the shade of a nearby tree when Merle looked at me from the corner of his eye and said, "You can go out if you want to."

I sat up from my spot in the grass and looked at him, "Really?"

"Yeah, you deserved it. Now all of ya'll go before I change my mind," he said in his gravelly smoker's voice and I quickly got up and took Annabelle's hand. Daryl got up too. My hair was down today and I didn't tape down my boobs either. I was wearing ripped up shorts and a gray tank top. Together we ran through the fair ground and got an all day pass to all of the rides which were wicked cheap when we had all of this money. We rode every fast ride we could. The ones that make you want to scream and even the slow Ferris wheel which we looked down from in amazement like little kids. At the end of the day Daryl suggested we leave Anna at the 4H tent so we could go to the free concert that was playing tonight. A bit worried I looked down at Anna and said, "Would you be alright if we left you at the 4H tent for about an hour or so?"

She looked up at me and nodded, "Sure! I'll be fine. If it closes I'll just go to camp."

I raised a brow, "You know you're way from the 4H tent to camp?"

Anna nodded, "Yeah, I memorized the fair map."

_Of course she did…_I thought humorously. Anna was smart. I knew she could take care of herself for a little while.

Daryl bought her some cotton candy and gave her a few dollars and when I told her he didn't have to do that he just said, "Don't worry 'bout it."

"Thank you," I said with a small smile.

He gave me a small smile too and we headed toward the main stage at the center of the fair. We worked our way into the crowd with ease so we could see the stage and watched Elton John move around the stage singing "Crocodile Rock". Daryl and I began to move with the crowd and it was fun. Bouncing on our feet over and over again until sweat started to streak our faces. We bumped against each other and a few strangers, but we didn't mind. Some guy handed us red plastic cups with beer in it and Daryl and I didn't hesitate when drinking it.

This was a summer I would never forget.

_Present Day _

"_What the hell do you want?" Daryl asked as Carol came up behind him. _

"_I'm keepin' an eye on you," she said, standing tall. _

"_Ain't you a peach?" Daryl scowled. He didn't forget about the danger this woman put Daisy in. If she actually believed that Daryl would just soften up to her like butter, she was crazy. _

_Carol didn't waver, "I'm not gonna let you pull away," she said softly, "You've earned your place." _

_Daryl shot back at her, angry as hell, "If you spent half your time minding your daughter's business instead of sticking your nose into everybody else's she'd still be alive!" Carol stepped back at that and Daryl went on, "What? Do you think I don't know about what you've done to Daisy? After everything she's done for you…you still treat her like a piece of filth. And out of everyone here you go and run your mouth off to Shane. Daisy confided in ya, Carol, she trusted ya! You weren't even there, but I was! An-." _

_Carol cut him off, which angered Daryl even more, "You were there?" Daisy didn't tell her that Daryl was there with her when it all went down…_

"_Yeah…" he said, "I was. But does that make a difference?!" Daryl yelled in anger and disbelief at this woman. Carol looked taken aback and Daryl came up close to her, "Now get your sorry ass out of my face, crazy bitch." _

_Carol's hands were clenched into fists at her side and when she didn't move Daryl shoved past her and walked back towards the house, "And don't follow me either!" _

XXXXX

"We have to go after them," Lori cried, "And see if they're alright. We have to get them. They've been gone way to long."

We were all standing in the kitchen and as Andrea and Beth tried to comfort Lori, Daryl came in silently. I raised a brow at him, but he just shrugged. Carol had walked out of here a while ago…

"You know what," Shane said, "I would go after Rick, you know that, but first things first. I have to look after you and the baby…" When he said that he looked at me with the crazy look in his eyes he always seems to have. Did Shane actually think I was a threat to Lori's unborn child? Carol sure did tell him, but she obviously didn't tell him the entire story.

Carl looked up at his mother and all eyes were turned onto her. Daryl looked up too in surprise, but when he saw on my face that I already knew his face went hard.

"You're having a baby?" Carl asked, "Why didn't you tell me?"

When Lori didn't answer Carl walked away and I placed a hand on Lori's arm, "How about you come upstairs with me, alright?"

She nodded and as we walked upstairs I was contemplating on what we would do if they really didn't come back. What would happen?

I sat Lori down and the woman cried for a while and all I could do was awkwardly pat rub her back and say everything was going to be alright. Finally she stopped and when she did Andrea came up with some tea and Dale and Carl came along with them. I got up from my seat beside Lori and Carl quickly took it. I smiled down at the little boy and said, "I'm just gonna check up on Beth. See if she's doin' any better."

They nodded and when I sat down beside her I took her hand and just started talking quietly. To anyone on the outside looking in I probably looked crazy, but all I was doing was praying. With my head bowed and my eyes closed I prayed for God to forgive me and for Carol even though she wasn't my favorite person in the world right now. I prayed for the girl in the bed beside me looking up at the ceiling, as if there were a whole other universe up there that was far better than the one we are on. I prayed for Anna to live happily and to not be afraid. I prayed for Andrea, hoping she would find solace in the people around her, I prayed for Amy too. I prayed for T-Dog and Dale who are strong in their own way and are amazing people. I prayed that Glenn, Rick and Hershel will come back home safe and sound. I prayed for Lori and her children, hoping the best for them and that they will be able to overcome this world. I finally prayed for Daryl and thanked that whoever was listening to me for putting him into my life. I also prayed for Merle and hoped that the two brothers will someday reunite.

That night I made sure Anna was sleeping down stairs on the couch as I decided to sleep upstairs in the little cushioned chair beside Beth. After I hooked an IV up to her I went down and curled myself up into a ball to sleep. Slowly, but surely, I dozed off into sleep.

XXXXX

I woke up the next morning to the sound of slamming car doors and I quickly get up from my spot and after seeing that Beth is fine for now I go out and see that people are gearing up and getting ready to leave for something, "What's goin' on?" I asked.

"We're going into town to get Hershel, Rick and Glenn," Andrea said.

I looked at Daryl as he pulled his crossbow across his back and I bit my bottom lip, worried. Of course I had faith in Daryl, but something could go wrong at any given point.

Just as I was about to say something a car sped up on the road and pulled into the dirt drive. It was Hershel, Rick and Glenn, but then I saw someone else in the back of the car…

Rick embraced with his family and Maggie embraced Glenn. Hershel walked past all of us and said, "Patricia, get the shed ready for surgery."

All of them were fine, the person in the back wasn't. I started walking forward to the open window and T-Dog asked the question everyone else wanted to ask, "Who the hell is that?"

"That's Randall," Glenn said.

When he said that and when I got a close enough look at his face, I knew exactly who it was. Quickly I backed up and started back into the house with Hershel. I thought Randall had died a long time ago. I clearly remember waking up in Atlanta and seeing that Randall wasn't there. Jack and Diego just concluded that he probably had to get up for a piss in the middle of the night and couldn't make it back. Sure, Randall was an idiot, but I never knew he actually would be alive…what the hell happened to him?

Soon enough I was in the shed with Hershel and I was inspecting Randall's calf muscle, "Good thing it went straight through, but damn…he must've been moving around a lot after it happened."

Hershel nodded, "As to be expected."

Randall's nerve tissue was pretty broken up and I was guessing he wouldn't have the ability to walk for at least a week. Hershel and I repaired his calf and I stitched him up as best as I could although his flesh was torn up and a bit jagged.

As Hershel and I walked back to the house he said, "You know him, don't you?"

I nodded, "Yeah. Thought he was dead…how'd ya know?"

"The way that you looked at him I guess," Hershel said simply, "Where do you know him from?"

"He was part of a group Annabelle and I were in, in Atlanta. One night he just disappeared, thought he got eaten by the walkers," I explained.

Hershel nodded, "I see…"

When we got into the house Hershel told everyone who were standing in a large group in the kitchen and after Hershel told Rick the time Randall would be able to walk Rick was quick to say, "When he's able we'll give him a canteen, take him out into the middle of the road and send him on his way."

"Isn't that the same as leaving him for the walkers?" Andrea asked and liked her I was a bit disgusted by the idea of helpless Randall being left once again.

Rick shrugged, "Well, he'll have a fighting chance?"

Shane shook his head and of course he had something to say, "You're just gonna let him go? He knows where we are?"

"He was blindfolded the whole way here," Rick argued, "He's not a threat."

And like always, again, Shane just wanted to hear himself talk, "Not a threat? How many more are there? You kill three of their men and took one of them hostage, but they ain't gonna go lookin' for 'em." Shane said in disbelief.

Rick got red in the face as he said, "They left him for dead, no one is going to go looking for him."

As Annabelle walked over to me I spoke up, "Randall probably isn't a threat…I know the kid. He's dumb as hell and probably as useless too. No one will go out looking for him, Shane, trust me….I didn't."

Everyone looked up at me and I regretted saying it. I hate it when people look at me like that. Rick was about to speak, but of course Shane cut him off, "I'm just gonna go give him some flowers and candy," he scoffed, "Look at this folks! We're back in Fantasyland!" Shane paused for a moment and then looked up at Rick, "And do you know what? The funniest thing about all of this is that we're discussin' about some stupid kid, but we haven't even talked about the main problem."

Rick rolled his eyes, "And what's that, Shane?"

Shane pointed a finger at me, "We're livin' under the same roof as a murderer and we haven't even done anythin' about it yet." Everyone looked at me again and I could feel the blood drain from my face. This was it. This was my downfall. "Yeah, everybody, can ya believe it? All this time we've been livin' with someone we don't even know."

Daryl took a step forward as Shane walked forward to me, "So tell us, Daisy. Who'd you kill?"

Backed up against the wall know I said silently, "You wouldn't understand." I felt like a fish out of water.

"We want the truth," Shane said. With my legs shaking he came closer and I hated him so much.

Rick put a hand on Shane's shoulder, "Shane, just stop."

Shane shook his head and his stare at me did not waver…not once. "Who'd you kill, Daisy?"

And stupidly, out of horror, I said, "I killed the man who hurt me."

Shane's voice became louder because he didn't take that answer, "The truth!"

"Jesus, Shane, what the hell do you think you're doin'?" Lori's voice faltered.

"I killed the man who hurt me," I choked out again and tears started to hit against my closed eyes.

Shane just kept on coming, "Stop lying and tell us the truth!"

As Daryl came up behind Shane and knocked him to the ground I cried out, "I'm not! I killed the man who raped me and killed my sister!"

Right when Shane's body fell to the ground I picked Annabelle up in my arms and bolted out of the house as fast as I could. Annabelle was silently crying and she kept on saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

When I buckled her into the passenger seat of my truck the only thing I could say was, "It's not your fault. Stop saying sorry. It's not your fault."

I shut her door and quickly went into the driver's side and slammed the door, giving my truck a shake. Turning the keys harder than needed I quickly pulled backed up and started driving down the dirt path leading out of Hershel's property. And like before I didn't look back when I heard Daryl calling for me. I was leaving him again.

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	17. Nothing Like A Threat At 2 AM

**I know I left a lot of you hanging, but here's a new chapter :-) Not much happened in it, but I'm just trying to punch down some episodes so I can get the action flowing better. Thank you to Mickey-Moo, mrskaz453, Goldenfightergirl, halodoll89, haleyjune13 and the one guest. Thank you for the follows and favs too! Hope to hear more from you and I hope you all enjoy this chapter. **

_Flashback_

A week before summer officially ended I was walking home from a few hours at the hospital. I was so excited to leave with the money I earned from the shows that I bounced a bit when walking and probably had the dumbest smile on my face one would ever see. I came to a stop in front of my house. For the first time in years, I noticed my half-finished yellow paint job. The paint was from a long time ago when mom was still alive. I got a free bucket of bright yellow paint and tried to paint the house to make it look a lot more livelier and when I asked for help with it no one in the family bothered because they knew it wouldn't do anything. I'd spent so much time here try to make things a little better, but nothing had worked.

In fact, the house was getting worse. One of the deck pillars was starting to buckle. The leak in the roof over Anna's bed had gotten so bad that when it rained, she slept under an inflatable raft Dad had won in a sweepstakes by sending in Benson & Hedges 100s packages we'd dug out of trash cans. If I left, Anna could have my old bed.

At the rear of the house, where the stairs had completely rotted through, I climbed through the back window we now used as a door. Dad was at the drafting table, working on some calculations and Anna was flipping through a used up coloring book. When I told them the day I would be leaving, Dad stubbed out his cigarette, stood up, and climbed out the back window without saying a word. Anna nodded and looked down, dusting off a page, murmuring something to herself.

"So, what do ya think kiddo?" I asked. She looked like she was on the verge of tears, "What's wrong, sweetie?"

Anna shook her head, "Nothing. You should go. It's a good plan."

"Don't be sad, Annabelle. I'll try to get you in Atlanta with me and Lori as fast as I can."

XXXXX

At home the night before I am supposed to leave, Anna cleaned out a suitcase she'd used for her collection of dancing shows, and I filled it with my clothes, mixed tapes and school books. I wanted to leave everything from my past behind, even the good things. I left the boxes that held the majority of my stuff underneath my bed and decided to just give them all to Anna. But before I could think of what I was doing, I took out Daryl's ring and placed it carefully in my bag. I couldn't lose it if he were to ask for it back one day…

The one bus out of my hometown left at seven-ten in the morning. I needed to be at the station before seven. Anna announced that since she was not by nature an early riser, she would not be getting up to see me off. "I know what you look like, and I know what the bus station looks like," she said. "And those big farewells are so sentimental." When she said this all I could think of was that she sounded like Mom.

XXXXX

I could hardly sleep that night. Neither could Anna. From time to time, she'd break the silence by announcing that in seven hours I'd be leaving, in six hours I'd be leaving and so on and so forth until finally she fell asleep at the three hours mark. And when she did I got up and started to get ready early.

Dad hadn't come home that night, but when I climbed through the back window with my suitcase, I saw him sitting at the bottom of the stone steps, smoking a cigarette. He insisted on carrying the suitcase for me, and we set off down the street and around the old road.

The empty streets were damp. Every now and then Dad would look over at me and wink, or make a clucking sound with his tongue as if I were a horse and he was urging me on. It seemed to make him feel like he was doing what a father should do, plucking up his daughter's courage, helping her face the terrors of the unknown.

When we got to the station, Dad turned to me. "Honey, life in Atlanta may not be as easy as you think it's going to be."

"I can handle it," I told him.

Dad reached into his pocket and pulled out his favorite jackknife, the one with the horn handle and the blade of blue German steel.

"I'll feel better knowing you have this." He pressed the knife into my hand.

The bus turned down the street and stopped with a hiss of compressed air in front of the Trailways station. The driver opened up the luggage compartment and slid my suitcase in next to the others. I hugged Dad. When our cheeks touched, and I breathed in his smell of tobacco, Vitalis and whiskey, I realized he'd shaved for me.

"If things don't work out, you can always come home," he said. "I'll be here for you. You know that, don't you?"

"I know." I knew that in his way, he would be. I also knew I'd never be coming back.

Only a few passengers were on the bus, so I got a good seat next to a window. The driver closed the door, and we pulled out. At first I resolved not to turn around. I wanted to look ahead to where I was going, not back at what I was leaving, but I turned anyway.

Dad was lighting a cigarette. I waved, and he waved back. Then he shoved his hands in his pockets, the cigarette dangling from his mouth, and stood there, slightly stoop-shouldered and distracted-looking. I wondered if he was remembering how he, too, had left his hometown full of vinegar at the age of seventeen and just as convinced as I was now that he'd never return. I wondered if he was hoping that his favorite girl would come back, or if he was hoping that, unlike him, she would make it out for good.

I reached into my pocket and touched the horn-handled jackknife, then waved again. Dad just stood there. He grew smaller and smaller, and then we turned a corner and he was gone.

_Present Day _

I drove and drove for a long, long time. It seemed to be forever as we passed random walkers and all I could think about was Daryl and how I'm leaving once again. I clenched my jaw as I tried to keep the majority of the tears in, but they spilled out anyway. Annabelle was crying too. She never wanted to leave and I knew that. We've been fine on our own before. We always have.

Finally, I pulled the car over to the side of the road and parked it there. With my hands draped over the wheel I stared out ahead of me. Thinking about the previous events that seemed to crash down upon me like a whirlwind and what I just did to Daryl and the rest of the group, like Lori and Rick I put my car in reverse and turned around. I couldn't leave like this although I have done so many times before. I've left Annabelle on so many occasions and leaving someone else like this…it's horrible. I've left Jack and Faraday at Woodbury and I wouldn't be surprised if they were now dead because of me. So many people had to go through with me leaving…

As I drove back towards the farm I heard the loud drive of a motorcycle coming my way and I could see Daryl coming towards me. I parked once more and got out. He did the same. The first thing he said was, "Jesus, Daisy. Are you alright?"

I didn't know why he cared after everything that I've done to him. After driving away from him like that. "I'm fine," I said, "What about you? What about the rest of the camp?"

"They're all confused…and as for me, I just want you to come back," he said genuinely.

Shaking my head I say, "I can't, Daryl. Shane…he's got the upper hand now and no one will treat me the same. They're all going to eventually drive me out again."

"No, they're not, Daisy. At this point everyone think Shane's crazy, because he is. You need to come back," he said once more, this time more desperately, which was surprising.

Biting my bottom lip I asked, "How did they react to you knockin' Shane out like that?"

He shrugged, "They helped him, but I left before they could do or ask anythin' of me. Personally, I think they were all relieved."

Finally, I just nodded. "I'll go back, but if somethin' like that happens again…I'm gone for good, you understand?" I asked as if he were a kid.

Daryl nodded, "Yeah…"

I got into my truck and he onto his bike and we rode back. As I drove Anna looked up to me and asked, "What did he say to make you go with him?"

"He didn't have to say anythin'…I turned around before he came back anyway, right?" I asked with a bite of my bottom lip.

She nodded, "Yeah, I guess so…what made you turn around?"

Shrugging my shoulders I replied, "Realizing that I've turned around from way to many people…and that it should stop…" Looking down at her I murmured, "I'm sorry for leaving you like that, Anna."

Anna just looked out the window, "It alright. You just wanted to protect me…and it turns out, you did."

She was right as hell I just wanted to protect her. We were quiet for the rest of the drive back and when we got there it seemed as if everyone was outside waiting for our arrival…except Shane of course.

When I got out of the car I was surprised to see Lori come up to me and hug me, "I'm so sorry Shane did that to you, sweetie…" she let go of me and I was a bit speechless. Why was she hugging me after everything Shane said about me? Then I remembered what I said…she probably felt bad for me and I really didn't want that. No one has to feel sorry for me.

I shake my head, "You don't have to apologize for something he did…" I murmur and Lori nods.

"Still…I'm glad that you decided to come back. I don't know if you know this or not, but the group needs you," she said with a kind smile.

"Thanks," I smile back.

Rick came up to me and beside Lori he said, "I'm glad you came back, Daisy. I just wanted to let you know that nobody in the group is going to question you any longer…what Shane did was wrong and we all know it."

"How is he?" I ask without thinking. I don't know why I did.

Rick raised a brow in surprise, "He's unconscious still, but…when he wakes up I'll take care of him. I suggest you park your car somewhere else and just stay there until I take him someplace we can talk."

Although confused by this I just nod my head and go back to the car where Anna decided to stay. Daryl watches me go to the edge of the property and I can tell by the look on his face that he understands why Rick is doing this even if I do not. I parked the car near a peach tree and hopped out telling Anna to follow me as we walk over to the shed where Randall is. Looking around the shed I find a rock just lying next to the shed and pick it up to find the key. Whoever did that was _so _smart. I think sarcastically.

"What are you doing?" Annabelle hissed.

Unlocking the chain which kept the shed door shut I said, "We're going to talk to Randall."

She furrowed her brows as the chains fell to the ground, "What for?"

"Don't you want to say hi?" I ask with a grin.

Anna cringed her nose, "Not really. The group that he was with tried to kill Rick, Hershel and Glenn."

"So?" I ask, "He didn't. I'm bettin' Randall's going to be kicked out soon anyways."

As soon as I said that I could hear Randall call out, "Daisy? Anna? Is that you?"

Opening the door, we stepped inside and saw Randall lying there with his pant leg rolled up to reveal the wrapped up wound. Anna closed the door behind her and I replied, "Yes, it's us."

Randall looked up, "Boy am I glad to see you two."

"What the hell happened to you in Atlanta?" I asked, firstly.

He seemed surprised by my abruptness and answered, "Well, uh, went out in the mornin' to take a piss," How did I know? "Found myself in a bad spot and some guys helped me out."

I let out a short and flat laugh, "Well, Shane thinks those guys are goin' to come after us now that we have your sorry ass."

Randall grinned and sat up on his elbows, "You haven't changed one bit, Daisy. Who's Shane?"

I shrugged, "I guess you can call him the loco co-leader of the new group we're in. He's a freak of nature. Highly disturbed. Chances are he killed all of his friends at the office the day his mom forgot to pack him a cookie for lunch," I laughed out loud at the thought, "Oh and the others want to leave you out in the middle of nowhere," I added.

"What?!" he asked with raised brows, "What happened to Jack and Diego and the others?"

"Jack and Geek are alive the last time I checked with another group of people…the others are dead," I answered truthfully.

Randall looked like he was about to cry as he tried to move his leg, "Diego and Ian? They're dead too?"

I nodded, "Yeah."

"And what's all this talk about dumpin' me in the middle of nowhere?" he cried out and Annabelle put a finger to her lips with wide eyes, signaling him to shut his goddamn mouth.

I sighed, "They're planning on leavin' you at a place where you could possibly survive if you're smart enough, but it's gonna be miles off from where we are now. They'll probably blind fold you again too."

He furrowed his brows, "Now why is that?"

"They feel threatened by you, Randall," I replied.

"Daisy…" Annabelle murmured.

I turned to see her peeking out of a crack in the wall of the shed. Randall could look out that, but I realized he didn't have enough time… "What?" I asked.

"Shane just got out of the house…" she said in a rather carefree tone, as if she didn't really care anymore.

Turning to Randall I said, "See ya!" and then Anna and I got out of the shed. Randall started calling my name and surprisingly, when I told him to shut-up, he did. I locked the door back up again and Anna and I turned to the truck, which was hidden within the trees. Anna watched from the window behind the back seat and she told me everything that happened. How Rick and Shane tugged Randall out of the shed with a cloth tied around his eyes and how he could barely walk. She told me how they shoved him into the trunk of Rick's SUV and finally she told me how they drove off.

After fifteen minutes of sitting in the car I decided to get out, but as Anna and I did there was always that fear of something going wrong again. I think Carol learned that whatever she was trying to do to me was going to fail and I was glad for that because I knew that if she tried to pull shit like that ever again, I would have the upper hand. I'll act civilly to her, but when she's begging me for my help…I just hope she knows that I'm not going to anymore. I'm done with her.

When we walked into the house to see how Beth was holding up the first thing I heard was Maggie and Beth yelling at each other. Anna and I walked into the kitchen where Lori and Andrea were and Anna nonchalantly hopped up on the kitchen counter. I pursed my lips and looked at the both of them, "What happened?"

"Beth took a knife…she attempted suicide, or is at least thinking about it," Lori replied, taking an uneasy glance at Anna, "It's a family thing…they can work it out."

Andrea raised her brows, "That's working it out?" she asked, gesturing to the yelling and screaming upstairs.

Lori handed an apple to Anna who thanked her and then went back to talking to Andrea, "If Beth stops fighting that's when it's time to worry."

"It could've been handled better…" Andrea said, looking at the blue and white tiles of the floor.

Lori hopped off of the counter and walked over to the island where more slices of apples were waiting, "How so?"

"You shouldn't have taken the knife away," Andrea said simply.

As Lori took empty dish the apple pieces were once on to the sink she turned around with a raised brow, "Excuse me?"

Andrea shrugged, "You were wrong…like Dale taking my gun, that wasn't your decision."

I held my hands behind my back and leaned up against the fridge as I watched the conversation.

"She has to choose to live on her own," Andrea went on, "She has to find her own reasons."

Lori was about to contradict, but I interrupted before it came out to be a whole fight between who is right, "How about you go up and talk to her, Andrea? Let Maggie get some air."

Andrea furrowed her brows, "What?"

"I'm not saying you have to talk her way out of suicide, but tell her the facts. Tell her what you went through. After that nobody should say a word to her. She'll decide from there," I explained.

Andrea, for a moment looked at me as if I were crazy or had no heart, but then she relaxed a bit and then nodded, taking a hard look at Lori for a moment before turning around and going upstairs.

Once Andrea left I turned to Lori, "How are you?"

"I'm just fine sweetie, and you?" I don't know why, but I like how she called me sweetie. It was like having a mom again, having an older woman care about you.

"Fine…" I reply with a small and short sigh, looking into the distance.

Maggie came down stairs silently and Lori gave her some lunch.

As Lori washed the dishes she asked me, "Did you know Randall well?"

Maggie and Lori didn't notice Andrea make her way down the stairs and walk out the door and I didn't bother saying anything about it. I shrugged, "Not really…he is annoying as I imagine a younger brother bein'. Couldn't seem to keep his mouth shut." I don't understand why we're talking about Randall in the past tense. For all we know he's with Rick and Shane still.

After Maggie finished her meal she washed her dishes and said, "I'm goin' back up."

I stared into the distance once more as I could hear Maggie scream for Beth to open the door and Lori threw a hand towel she had on her shoulder onto the counter and ran upstairs. I heard crying and Anna just looked at me strangely. Beth, Maggie and Lori came downstairs and I saw that Beth was bleeding from her wrist and I did as everyone expected me too. I healed her wound which wasn't deep at all. In the hospital I always got calls for attempted suicide and I helped people who overdosed or stabbed themselves, missing the heart. A lot of them had scars on their wrists and for some reason, like Andrea I just wanted to let them do what they wanted to. I kind of just wanted to tell them that if they wanted to kill themselves that they should cut vertically, because I couldn't stitch that up…but what kind of person would I be if I did that?

When Shane and Rick came back later on that day with Randall, Anna and I made sure to steer clear from Shane and I don't even think he noticed we were here. That's probably what Rick wanted…after Patricia made us dinner she told Anna and I that we could sleep in a spare room so we didn't have to face going outside with Shane. I didn't want to be looked upon as a weak person, but seeing this as the best way out of another confrontation, I took the offer.

XXXXX

_Creeeaak. _

I shot up in the guest bed. The moon cast a silver slant of light across the carpet. The walls were covered in photographs of both the deceased and alive Greene family members, all smiling and happy it seemed. Annabelle was asleep beside me with her back turned to me. _The Bell Jar, _a book I had selected from one of the bookcases here still lay open upon the nightstand. Everything seemed in place. The windows were locked.

_Creeeaak. _

Getting up I placed my feet upon the wooden floorboards and looked around. Walking over to the window I looked out. Everything still seemed in place. Everyone seemed to be sleeping soundly. I was about to turn around but before I could the sharp point of a knife touched me through the cotton of my night shirt. Gasping out, a large hand quickly muffled a small scream of terror, their index finger and thumb slightly pinching my nose.

"Don't scream or fight me or I swear…" I could recognize Shane's voice immediately. I let out a slight whimper as he went on, "Now…you think Randall was goin' to keep his mouth shut after your little visit? Listen to me, if you plan anythin' stupid, like tryin' to bust him out. Your dead. To both me and Rick. We'll take care of this. Rick's plannin' on havin' you talk to him again, and you're lucky I'm even lettin' _that _happen. If everythin' was up to me you'd be dead right now, either that or left off in the middle of nowhere with that dumbass in the shed. Also, let's make one thing clear…if you don't try to make a move on me or try to tell someone in the group about what happened tonight, I won't ask you anymore questions and I won't hurt you or your little sister. You understand? Nod your head if you understand?" He said all of this in a hushed whisper and I could feel his lips moving against my ear and his hot breath against my face.

The only thing I could do was obey and nod.

"Good girl," Shane said in a rather disgustingly praising tone. As one hand covered my mouth the other that was holding the knife moved and I guess he put the knife in his pants as he started to stroke my thigh…disgusting pig. "If you follow my rules and my orders I won't hurt you or Anna…you wouldn't want little Anna to be an orphan do you? Nobody to protect her…Also," did he ever shut up? "If you have Daryl make a move like that on me again, I'll make sure to hurt him too," His hand that was on my thigh quickly wrapped around my waist and pulled me so my back was touching his chest and unfortunately, his erection. "I've made myself clear, haven't I?"

I nod once more and he lets go of me slowly. I don't do anything except stand still and look out the window as he goes and leaves. Shane wouldn't get away with this and no matter what threats he gave me I knew he would have his fair share in the end. Shane Walsh was going down.

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	18. Double the Trouble

**Thank you to all of my lovely readers and those who decided to follow this story and put it in their favorites. Thank you to hayleyjune13, mks 12 98, HaloHunter89, mrskaz453, Goldenfightergirl, BethAmber123, Autumn, HermioneandMarcus, Dr. BadAss Is In (love the username btw) and of course my guests for reviewing :-) Hope to hear more from all of you!  
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_Flashback _

It was dusk when I got my first glimpse of it off in the distance, beyond a ridge. All I could see were the spires and blocky tops of buildings. And then we reached the crest of the ridge, and there was a huge a space of land tip to tip with skyscrapers, their glass glowing like fire in the setting sun.

My heart started to race, and my palms grew damp. I walked down the bus aisle to the tiny restroom and in the rear and washed up in the metal basin. I studied my face in the mirror and wondered what the people in Atlanta would think when they looked at me. Would they see a hick, a tall, gawky girl, still all elbows and knees and jutting teeth? For years Lori had been telling me I had an inner beauty. Most people didn't see it. I had trouble seeing it myself, but Lori was always saying she could damn well see it and that was what mattered. I hoped when the city people looked at me, they would see whatever it was that Lori saw.

XXXXX

When the bus pulled into the terminal, I collected my suitcase and walked to the middle of the station. A blur of hurrying bodies streamed past me, leaving me feeling like a stone in a creek, and then I heard someone calling my name. He was a pale guy with thick, black-framed glasses that made his eyes look tiny. His name was Evan, and he was a friend of Lori's. She was at work and had asked him to come meet me. Evan offered to carry my suitcase and led me out to the street, a noisy place with crowds backed up waiting to cross the intersection, cars jammed together, and papers blowing every which way. I followed him right into the thick of it.

After one block, Evan put down my suitcase. "This is heavy," he said. "What do you have in here?"

"My coal collection."

He looked at me blankly.

"Just jokin' with ya," I said and punched him in the shoulder. Evan wasn't too quick on the uptake, but I took that as a good sign. There was no reason for me to be automatically in awe of the wit and intellect of these Atlanta people.

I picked up the suitcase. Evan did not insist I give it back to him. In fact, he seemed sort of relieved that I was carrying it. We continued on down the block, and he kept glancing at me sideways.

"You Jackson girls are one tough breed," he said.

"You got that right," I told him.

XXXXX

Evan dropped me off at a German restaurant called Zum Zum. Lori was behind the counter, carrying four beer steins in each hand, her hair in twin buns and speaking in a thick German accent because, she explained later, it increased tips. "_Dees ees mein seester!" _she called out to the men at one of her tables. They raised their beer steins and shouted, "_Velkomen to New Yorken!" _

I didn't know any German, so I said, "_Grazi!" _

They all got a chuckle out of that. Lori was in the middle of her shift, so I went out to wander the streets. I got lost a couple of times and had to ask directions. People had been warning me for months about how rude people in Atlanta were. It was true, I learned that night, that if you tried to stop them on the street, a lot of them kept on walking, shaking their heads; those who did stop didn't look at you first. They gazed off down the block, their faces closed. But as soon as they realized you weren't trying to hustle them or panhandle money, they warmed right up. They looked you in the eye and gave you detailed instructions about how, to get to Emory college, you went up nine blocks and made a right and cut across two blocks and so on. They even drew you maps. People in Atlanta, I figured, just pretended to be unfriendly.

XXXXX

Later, Lori and I took a bus down to the Evangeline, a women's hostel where she had been living. That first night I woke up at three a.m. and saw the sky all lit up a bright orange. I wondered if there was a big fire somewhere, but in the morning Lori told me that the orange glow came from the air pollution refracting the light off the streets and buildings. The night sky here, she said, always had that color.

The very next day, I landed a job at a hamburger joint on Fourteenth Street. After taxes and social security, I'd be taking home over eighty dollars a week. I had spent a lot of time imagining what Atlanta would be like, but the only thing that had never occurred to me was that the opportunities would come so easily. Aside from having to wear those embarrassing red-and-yellow uniforms with matching floppy hats, I loved the job. The lunch and dinner rushes were always exciting, with the lines backing up at the counter, the cashiers shouting orders over the microphones, the grill guys shoveling hamburgers through the flame-broiling conveyer belt, everyone running from the fixings counter to the drinks station to the infrared fries warmer, staying on top of the orders, the manager jumping in to help whenever a crisis cropped up. We got 20 percent off on our meals, and for the first weeks there, I had a cheeseburger and a chocolate milk shake every day for lunch.

XXXXX

In the middle of the fall, after I had already started taking classes at Emory every day and working late hours every night, Lori found us an apartment in a neighborhood we could afford. The yellow art deco building must have been pretty fancy when it opened, but now graffiti covered the outside walls, and the cracked mirrors in the lobby were held together with duct tape. Still, it had what Mom would've called good bones.

Our apartment was bigger than the entire house in the trailer park, and way fancier. It had shiny oak parquet floors, a foyer with two steps leading down into the living room—where I slept—and off to the side, a bedroom that became Lori's. We also had a kitchen with a working refrigerator and a gas stove that had a pilot light, so you didn't need matches to get it going, you just turned the dial, listened to the clicking, then watched the circle of blue flame flare up through the tiny holes in the burner. My favorite room was the bathroom. It had a black-and-white tile floor, a toilet that flushed with a powerful whoosh, a tub so deep you could submerge yourself completely in it, and hot water that never ran out.

It didn't bother me that the apartment was in a rough neighborhood; we'd always lived in rough neighborhoods. Puerto Rican kids hung out on the block at all hours, playing music, dancing, sitting on abandoned cars, clustering at the entrance to the bus station and in the front of the bodega that sold cigarettes called loosies. I got jumped a number of times. People were always telling me that if I was robbed, I should hand over my money rather than risk being killed. But I was darned if I was going to give some stranger my hard-earned cash, and I didn't want to become known in the neighborhood as an easy target, so I always fought back. Sometimes I won, sometimes I lost. What worked best was to keep my wits about me. Once, as I was getting on a train, some guy tried to grab my purse, but I jerked it back and the strap broke. He fell empty-handed to the platform floor, and as the train pulled out, I looked through the window and gave him a big sarcastic wave.

XXXXX

That spring I started looking for jobs in the medical field where my new found knowledge could be put to use. I found an internship at St. Joseph's Hospital which was very close to Emory. The chief of staff was Mike Armstrong. He seemed like a very tired man that worked too much and so did a lot of the others working there. In the spring, when Mr. Armstrong was interviewing medical students from Emory one girl named Clara went in and the next thing I knew she was walking out in disgust and Mr. Armstrong called out, "Sorry sweetheart, but we don't take broads that have bartender on their resume!"

After she'd left, Mr. Armstrong looked at me. The Atlanta zoning board was meeting that afternoon and he had no one to take care of the paperwork. "If you start calling me Mike instead of Mr. Armstrong," he said, "you can have the job."

I had just turned seventeen. I quit my job at the hamburger joint the next day and became a full-time medical intern for St. Joseph's. I'd never been happier in my life. I worked ninety-hour weeks, my telephone rang constantly, rushing back to file copies of medical records, and staying up until four a.m. to plan everything ahead for Mr. Armstrong for the next week. And I was bringing home $250 dollars a week.

XXXXX

Soon enough I ended my first year of college with my four-year free ride scholarship.

Once the second year of school started, I could no longer pay my share of the rent, but a psychologist let me have a room in her apartment in exchange for looking after her two small sons. I still worked at St. Joseph's in the day time and on the weekends and Mike was still thankful.

My life went on like that for a while and Dad called us now and then to bring us up to date on life in the Tracks. I began to dread those calls, since every time we heard about them, there was a new problem: Anna had to sleep outside because the ceiling caved in; the stairs had been totally wiped out; Anna had fallen off the porch and gashed her head.

When Lori heard that, she declared it was time for Anna to move to Atlanta, too. But Anna was only eight, and I worried that she might be too young to leave home. The Tracks, was all she really knew.

"Who's going to look after her?" I asked.

"I will," Lori said. "She can stay with me."

Lori called Anna, who got squeally with excitement about the idea, and then Lori talked to Dad. Dad accused Lori of stealing his children and declared he disowned her. Anna arrived in early winter. Lori had moved into an apartment near Howell Mill Road and we enrolled Anna in a good public school called Brandon Elementary School. On weekends, I had dinner at Lori's apartment. We made fried pork chops or heaping plates of spaghetti and meatballs and sat around talking about the Tracks, laughing so hard at the idea of all that craziness that our eyes watered.

_Present Day _

I couldn't sleep for the rest of the night after my encounter with Shane. Instead I stayed up deciding my plan of action, how I would get him out of my life.

When the sun came up that morning I walked over to Anna and shook her awake. I didn't want her out of my sight for the rest of the day.

We walked down stairs and were greeted with the lovely smell of a home cooked meal. Eggs were popping on the fryer and I could even smell bacon. My mouth watered and Anna's eyes widened, but since we've been eating breakfast within our own group for the past few days I decided not to interfere on the Greene family's breakfast and walked out the front door where I could see all the guys and Andrea surrounding my truck once again.

I sighed and walked up to them. Shane was there, but I tried my best to ignore the pig headed bastard and asked, "What's goin' on?"

Rick looked at me and steadily replied what Shane already told me, "We want to learn more about Randall and his people. Could you go in there and ask him a few questions? If he doesn't give you good answers I'm afraid we're going to have to step in."

I pretended to act like I was listening to new information and that I hadn't already gone in to see Randall, "Oh, yeah, sure. I'm positive he'll tell me. After all he's been through with you two I wouldn't be surprised if he spilled his guts to me. No pun intended."

Rick furrowed his brows, "What do you mean by what he's been through with us?" he asked quizzically.

"I don't mean any offense by it, Rick. I mean I'm sure he's thankful that you decided not to leave him there, as he should be, but after what happened yesterday I'm sure he's worried about us like we're worried about his people, maybe even more," Rick nodded his head in understanding at this. "So, I'm going to go interrogate him, I guess and…yeah, see ya soon," I said with mock sarcasm and with Annabelle beside me we went to the little shed where they were keeping Randall.

I unlocked the door and when Anna stepped inside with me I shut the door behind her and turned my attention to Randall who was sitting in a chair in the center of the room with his hands ties behind the his back. He smiled up at me with his crooked teeth, "Daisy, oh man, you've gotta get me out of here! These people are crazy!"

Grabbing a chair in the far corner, I pulled it in front of him and sat myself down in it so the back of the chair was to my chest. I draped my arms over the back and said, "I'm gonna have to ask you some questions Randall and you're gonna answer me, alright? I don't want any bullshit."

Randall nodded his head rapidly, "No bullshit, I promise boss."

"Okay, how many men do you have in your group?" was my first question. We have to know their numbers, right?

He licked his lips, "We have around thirty men."

"Women?"

"None." He answered surely.

"Children?"

"None." He looked up at me and gave me a small smile, "Oh man, how I wish I stayed with you and the others."

I nodded and then went on to my next question, "Fighting skills. How many have 'em?"

"They can all shoot guns well, but hand-to-hand combat…I swear only about twenty are good at it. A lot of them are old ya know?"

I took that as a pretty good answer, but if they all had weapons we may as well be screwed, "What kind of weapons do ya'll have?"

He shrugged, "They have pretty heavy stuff. Automatics."

I bit my bottom lip, nervous for Randall's life at this point, "How many?"

Randall raised his brows, "How many what? Weapons?" I nodded, "Well, they all have at least one or two…" he said with his eyes going down sadly. When I saw this I knew Randall was speaking in honesty. He was a good person, despite what his shooting at Rick, Hershel and Glenn. He was just doing that to stay in the group he was in, that's how it worked.

Now positive that he was speaking in all honesty I asked him, "Randall, do you believe that you're group will come back and look for you in that one town?"

Sadly Randall shook his head, "I don't think so. They move pretty quickly. I've seen it all happen before. Once one is gone they're quick to pick up and leave again. We were headin' west."

Like how Jack, Faraday, Diego and Annabelle and I moved after Randall disappeared.

Finally, I got up from the chair and pushed it back to its place in the corner. Randall looked up at me with worried eyes and asked in his rather loud and annoying voice, "Will they kill me, Daisy?"

I shook my head, "I don't know…I don't think they will. If anything they'll just dump you, but I promise I'll be there when they do."

With that Anna and I walked out of the shed and locked the door. We walked away from the shed to the group who was standing by the still kindling fire underneath the large tree in front of the Greene family's home.

"They have heavy artillery and around thirty men. Randall admitted to us that he believes the group won't start a fight. He says they move quickly, once they go through a town they're done. Don't wage wars like you are brutally expecting to happen. Personally, I think Randall was just a weak link to them. From what I've seen of him in the past he doesn't even have a good shot," I explained this immediately to Rick and the others before they could ask. Dale handed me and Anna a peach and I took mine with thanks, biting into its juicy splendor.

Daryl looked at me from across the fire and nodded in approval. Shane rolled his eyes at this as Rick said, "No one goes near this guy." The group started voicing their opinions all at once and Shane argued that they should kill him, which Rick and Dale weren't too keen on. Anna and I finished our peaches as we listened to them argue and Andrea finally sided on Rick and Dale's side. I threw the peach pit into a small trash bucket and Anna did the same as we walked out of the fray and the strange thing is, nobody noticed us heading towards the shed, not even Shane. But when I turned around just to make sure no one was following I saw Daryl come up to us.

"Where d'ya think you're goin'?" Daryl asked.

Anna looked up at him and said, "Guarding Randall."

He looked down at Anna and grimaced, "From what?"

"Who do you think?" I mumbled in a low voice. Daryl got the hint as he looked back at Shane with the most pissed off face I've seen on him in a while. Finally, I decided that I was going to tell them about last night. Just so they knew. I had a feeling Daryl was going to lose his cool once more like he sometimes does and Shane was going to retaliate in some way. Personally, I was a bit worried that Shane would hurt Daryl, maybe kill him if it came to it. Daryl is strong as hell, I know that, but anyone can be caught off guard.

When we got to the shed I told Daryl and Annabelle what happened and Anna kept quiet, looking around with worried eyes as if a walker, or Shane, would just pop out from behind her. Daryl, as I expected, got pissed off and started heading in the groups direction, "I'm gonna fuckin' kill 'em."

I rolled my eyes at his reaction and ran off and stepped in front of him. Putting a hand on his chest I said, "No, you're not."

"Why ya holdin' me back, Cassie? The bastard deserves hell and I'm gonne serve it up to him, like I should," Daryl spoke with conviction and agitation that was so real Anna's eyes widened in even more worry, but I knew how to handle him.

With my hand on his chest I shook my head, "If you lay a hand on him it's only going to make mine and Anna's situation worse. _Your _situation worse. I'm sorry for draggin' you into this mess, really, I am, but if you want Shane to stay away from me and Anna you need to stay away from him. If you get a fight started with him the group will be on edge and most likely not be in your favor unless you have a proper motive. Going up to him and punching him in the jaw or smashing a plate over his head ain't a good motive. Make him start the fight, not you. Now are you pickin' up what I'm puttin' down?"

Daryl nodded, but anger was still etched on his face, "Goddammit woman why do you always have to do this to me?"

I smiled at his trifling irritation and as we sat down at the side of the shed I asked, "Do what?"

"You know what," he huffed. I laughed because I knew he didn't like his mind to be changed so easily. Hey, what can I say? I have that effect on people. Daryl gave me one of the smallest smiles in the world and I was a bit taken aback when he leaned down and kissed my cheek. My smile widened at that and I rested my head against his shoulder as I watched Anna start to make a crown of wild flowers.

Everything was peaceful, but I broke the silence when I asked carefully to Daryl, "What's your opinion on this whole thing with Randall?" I said it in a hushed whisper so Randall wouldn't hear, but at this point, I don't really think it mattered.

"I think the group is getting' worked up over nothin'. They're breaking over it, but my opinion, I think we should just drop him off. Let 'em have a fightin' chance like Rick and Dale said, but honestly, I don't think it would weigh out too much on my conscience if they just killed him," Daryl replied.

I nodded at this and took it in. Daryl's opinion mattered to me, but unlike Daryl, who knew Randall as only the guy who shot at our men, I think it would weigh down on my conscience if we executed him. At the end of the day he's just a guy that wants a shot at living. He's good, maybe not the best person you'll ever meet, but still good. He doesn't want to do any harm, but has to when it involves his life on the line.

Finally, I decided that I was worrying too much about it like the rest of the group.

Daryl looked out at the farm house and I followed his eyes. Carol was looking at us from washing some clothes and Daryl looked away, shook his head and scowled, "Jesus H. Christ." Anna gave him a disapproving look and Daryl looked at her, "Sorry," he mumbled out which for some reason I found funny.

Anna was one of the most religious people I know. She was tolerant of other's beliefs and once decided to be a Buddhist, Muslim and Christian all at the same time, but finally stuck to our family's Christian roots. I didn't mind it and when we're alone she would sometimes give me a quote from the Bible and she would always do her daily prayers and keep her rosary beads in her pocket. I'm not a very religious person myself. I mean I was baptized and all, but I decided to be still uncertain, but if you had to classify me under any religion it would probably be Anna's. Watching the pious little creature was refreshing.

Carol, on the other hand, is an annoying bitch to me right now, but I wasn't too worried about her at this point. Her plan to get me out of here failed. Everyone knew know what happened and the group didn't judge too much, unlike what they're doing to Randall. Anyway, I'm not going to let Carol get to me. I wouldn't mind getting rid of her like I'm trying to do with Shane.

After a while, Andrea started coming towards us with a smile and a gun in her pocket, "Hey, mind if I join you?" I shook my head and she sat down on the other side of me, "Everyone over there is arguing about what we're gonna do with the guy and it's kind of getting on my nerves, ya know?"

"Yeah, I know," I sighed, looking out at the farm, "What's your take on all of this?" Andrea looked at the shed, seemingly worried about Randall listening, but I shrugged, "Don't worry about him, it's not like he has that much power right now anyways."

Andrea nodded, "Well, I think we should get rid of him. He's not one of us and he can be a threat no matter if his group comes or not. Dale's fighting pretty hard for the boy's life to be spared and understand his reasoning, but…"

"You don't see the point in it," I finished for her, looking at her and squinting a bit from the sun, "I don't either…I kind of wish Rick and Shane just dumped him in the first place so we wouldn't be going through this right now."

She put her hands up in the air, "I know. They never explained what stopped them from doing it, but I'm guessing Rick didn't like the idea of it."

"You know what, I don't even care anymore," I said with a shrug.

Andrea smiled, "Sing it, sister."

We laughed at that and I could see a flicker of a smile on Daryl's lips as he sharpened his bows. I was surprised Daryl just decided to sit with us. It wasn't quite like him, but I think he was just worried about Anna and I and was being protective, and I'm appreciative of that.

As the sun was about to set we saw others making their way to the house and we all decided to go up and follow. The decision was going to be made tonight. Lori told Carl to stay outside because she didn't want him to hear what they had to say about the ordeal, and thinking that it was a good idea, I told Anna to do the same. She knew Randall and I knew she didn't want him to die, I could sense it. Anna and Carl walked away from the house to the fire and I smiled at them as they left.

When Daryl and Andrea and I got inside all was quiet for a while until Glenn spoke up, "So, are we just going to vote on this?"

"Does it have to be anonymous?" Andrea asked with a raise of her hand.

Rick nodded, "Let's just see where everybody stands, and then we can talk through the options."

"Not the way I see it," Shane said and I couldn't help it but to roll my eyes, "There's only one way in moving forward."

Dale looked frustrated, "Killing him. Right? Why even bother taking a vote when it's clear which way the wind is blowing."

"Well if people believe we should spare him, I want to know," said Rick.

Dale shrugged, "Well I can tell you it's a small group, maybe just me and Glenn…" he looked up at me and Daryl, but I didn't give him any response. I was a neutral in this decision.

Glenn shook his head, "You see, I think you're right about everything, but this…"

Dale's mouth hung open, "They've got you scared!"

"He's not one of us," Glenn explained, "And we've lost too many people already…"

Dale looked at me and asked, "What about you, Daisy? You know the boy and we haven't even heard your thoughts on this."

"Look, I don't want to just outright kill him in cold blood, but we can just dump him like we did before. I think his group has gone and left, but if we keep him prisoner…" I say shaking my head.

"It's just another mouth to feed," Daryl finished off and I nodded in agreement.

"We could ration better," Lori argued.

Dale nodded, "He could be an asset. Give him a chance to prove himself."

"We can put him to work," Glenn said.

Rick shook his head, "I don't want him walking around."

"We can have a guard on him," Maggie said.

"And who's willing to do that?" Shane scoffed.

"I will," Dale said, with a glare towards Shane.

Rick put his hand up, "I don't want anybody walking around with this guy."

Lori nodded, "Yeah, he's right. I wouldn't exactly feel safe around him."

Andrea put her arms around her chest, "We can't exactly put chains around him and sentence him to hard labor."

"Look," Shane started, "say we let 'em join us and maybe he's helpful and maybe he's nice and then we let our guard down and he runs and brings back his thirty men."

Dale sure did fight for Randall… "So the answer is to kill him to prevent a crime that he may never even attempt?! If we do this we're saying there's no hope. The rule of law is dead, giving in to the end of civilization."

"Oh my god..." Shane rolled his eyes.

Hershel looked hopeful as he asked, "Could you just drive him further out? Leave him like you planned."

Lori shook her head, "You barely came back this time. There are walkers you can bring down. You can get lost."

"You could get ambushed," Daryl added.

Glenn nodded, "We should not put our own people at risk."

"If you go through with it," Patricia said, "how would you go through with it? Would he feel pain?"

Shane shrugged, "We could just snap his neck." This guy was brutal and disgusting. Shane wasn't human.

"I've thought about that," Rick said, "But I think shooting would be more humane." I nodded at this. Sometimes I wish someone would've just shot me in the back of the head when this whole pandemic started.

"What about the body," T-Dog started, "Do we-."

Dale waved his arms around, "W-wait, hold on. You're talking as if this has already been decided."

"We've been talking about it all day," Daryl huffed and like him, I was getting sick of it, "We're goin' around in circles. Do you wanna just go around in circles again?" I could tell he was referring to what happened with Sophia and our failed attempts at finding her.

"This is a young man's life!" Dale argued, "And it is worth more than a five minute conversation. Is this what we have come to? We just kill someone because we can't decide what else to do with him? You saved him! And now look at us. He's been tortured, he's gonna be executed! How are we better than those people that we're so afraid of?"

"We all know what needs to be done…" Shane said.

Rick shook his head, "No, Dale is right. We can't leave any stone unturned here. We have responsibil-."

"So what do we do?" Andrea cut him off, "We haven't come up with a single viable option yet."

Dale's eyes widened, "So let's work on it!"

"Just stop it! Everyone just stop it!" Carol said and for a second I had an agreement with her, "I didn't ask for this," Nope. Mind changed. Now she just looks self serving, "You can't ask us to decide something like this. Please decide, either of you or both of you, but leave me out."

_Okay, we're fine with that. _I wanted to say.

"Not speaking out, or killing him yourself," Dale said, "There's no difference."

Rick rolled his eyes, "Alright that's enough. "If anyone wants the floor before we make a final decision, here's your chance."

Both Patricia and Beth sat down and no one spoke Dale started to speak again, mentioning that Rick once said that we don't kill the living. He pleaded to the group to do what's right and eventually Andrea sided with him, but the others stayed silent. Finally I stepped out, "Randall was in my group when I was in Atlanta. He helped out with getting supplies and stuff just like you did. He stayed in our group just to survive and when he found himself alone and in trouble another group aided him and took him with them. If he hadn't gotten in that situation I am sure he would've stayed with us and cause no harm. He's just a stupid kid for cryin' out loud. At first I thought letting him stay with us was a good idea, but now seeing all of you think he's just one big threat I've decided that a good compromise would be just to drop him off. He told me his group was heading west. I wouldn't mind risking my life driving the dumb ass out further east if it meant that you would all just shut up about it, no offense."

Rick grimaced, "None taken."

I uncrossed my arms from my chest, "Now, if you'll excuse me." And before I made my way out the door I said, "If anyone wants to stop me, I'm getting my truck ready to leave and get him out of here."

Daryl followed me out as I made my way to the shed. When I got inside I took the rag off the floor and Randall kept on asking what was going on as I tied it around his eyes, "We're takin' you out." I said.

Daryl grabbed Randall by the arm and pulled him to the back seat of my truck. Rick and everybody else followed us and I grabbed Anna too. I knelt down to her and said, "You still know how to drive right?" Anna nodded. She learned how to drive from some small lessons by me and Lori and also how to drive by herself when Lori and I were in New York City, when she had to drive Dad home from the bar. "Good, because I want you to stay in the truck no matter what. If we get in a situation and Daryl and I don't get out, I want you to hop in that driver's seat and drive back to the farm. Alright?"

She nodded, "Yeah, but do you think you and Daryl won't make it out?"

I bit my bottom lip, "I'm sure we'll get out just fine, but if we don't…"

"I've got it," she said.

I smiled and kissed her on the forehead, "I love you Anna."

"I love you too, Daisy," she murmured.

The rest of the group came out to watch as I got into the driver's seat and Anna next to me with Daryl and Randall in the back. I started the car and right before I began to drive Shane ran up and hopped into the bed of my truck. Quickly I halted the truck to a stop and rolled down the window and looked at him with my best what-the-hell-are-you-doing look. But he gave me a look that made me remember what happened last night.

After a moment of dead silence I gave him a nod, he nodded back and I drove on.

**Please review for more chapters! It'll make my day and means more than you know! **

**Just so you all know, I have made a Twitter account as a new and perhaps better way in keeping in touch with all of you and maybe we can have some convos about the story and the show. I'll give you information on what I am writing and will post the links to the chapters on there as soon as they're posted. So follow me at SalvatoreGirl64 (based it on my VD fanfic) and I hope to hear from you all soon! **


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